The Scourge of the Seven Seas
by HecateA
Summary: The story of how Reyna and Hylla got to Circe's island, how they lived there, how they got out, and how they did that while staying alive...
1. The Siege of CC

**Well, this has been sitting in Microsoft Word compelted for quite some time... Anyways, I decided to bring it out now. Just to get the facts straight before I go with this;**

**a) I know that Blackbeard actually treated his prisoners decently for a pirate, and that he didn't kill everyone in a ten feet radius. I know, I know; I did my research. But I needed a supervillain, so I'm doing what the rest of society's always done: romanticising Blackbeard and turning him into Captain Hook's soul sister.**

**b) Reyna isn't going to sound a lot like Reyna in the first few chapters. Bear with me. This is a story about Reyna growing up as well; so it isn't necessarily out of character, it's more like a younger, more naive version of her.**

**Thanks to Princess Anonymous who read this first, and I hope you enjoy! Not all chapters are this long.**

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><p>1<p>

The Island 

I looked into the kitchen. None of the appliances were on, the lights were off, the curtains hadn't been pulled open, and Hylla wasn't there either.

"Hylla!" I called. "Hylla!"

"What!" Her reply came from her room. Wow-I'd forgotten to check her room. Smooth.

"Do you have the straightener?"

"Which one?" she asked.

"The good one," I replied.

"Oh you mean _mine,_" Hylla said.

"Whatever," I rolled my eyes so she couldn't see. "Do you?"

"Yes."

"Come on- I need it!" I said. "Your hair actually looks _good _when it's curly."

"No it doesn't," Hylla said.

"Come on- my hair's already a mess, the highlights are wearing out!" I whined. She ignored me. I guess since we've been living just the two of us for six years she'd perfected that; just as I'd perfected the art of not being ignored.

I pounded on her door some more. "Hylla I'm going to be late!"

"Well so am I!"

"Hylla!" I yelled through the door.

"OW!" The door opened and I saw Hylla standing there, shaking her hand.

"See what happens when you're yelling at me when I'm using the straightener? I burn myself- good job, midget." She said shoving me on the way to the bathroom to pass her hand under cool water.

"You deserve it," I muttered, walking into the room. The straightener was on the dresser, and I took it pretty quickly. I noticed a little bottle of nail polish shaped like a diamond that I'd never seen before.

"Hey Hylla, this colour's nice." I said examining the tube. 'Golden Rules' was the colour name, and the colour itself was caught between gold and brown. "Can I borrow it?"

"No," she called. I pocketed it anyway and gathered the straightener as Hylla walked in.

"Reyna- I'm not done yet." She said.

"Not my problem." I said ducking under her arm. She closed her arm around my neck and squeezed.

"Ow- let go or I'm going to burn you with this!" I said wriggling like a worm.

"You won't live if you try," she muttered. I fought and finally kicked back to her shin.

"Reyna!"

I managed to get myself free. I dashed into the bathroom and locked the door behind me.

"Reyna!" She yelled from outside, banging on the door. "I'm going to be late!"

"Well so am I," I muttered plugging the straightener into the wall.

* * *

><p>It was lunch break, and Hope and I had crashed at my house.<p>

Hope Longing had long blond curls, light as feathers, and brown eyes. She was fit and pretty enough to play on a TV show, and nice enough to be a superstar and endure people putting her face on lunchboxes and t-shirts, or yelling her name. It would drive me insane, but Hope was amazing that way. She was always patient with the customers at the spa; she was always polite and flattering. Circe loved putting her on any job that made her mingle. I was usually shut in the back because I in no way have any power over my tongue.

She was surfing the web and we were pretty much ignoring the TV as 'Dear John' rolled. We knew the script by heart anyways; we did this all the time during lunch break. Circe insisted most movies be anti-male and we'd just taken our wild pick at that one when we'd been told to pick a new movie.

"Hey- look at this." She said. I leaned in towards her and looked at the screen. It was one of those sites with a million tests on it- Which nail polish colour is the right for you?

"Seriously?" I asked.

"Yeah," Hope said. "I'm going to do it."

"In case you didn't notice, your nails are hot pink and lime green right now." I told her.

"So," Hope shrugged. She clicked on the bubbles next to her answers and got 'pink'.

"Okay so- I am secure enough not to follow every trend."

"But some." I said.

"Of course," Hope said. "I'm the perfect blend of preppy, stylish and cute- heavy on the cute."

"You wish," I joked. She made a face.

"…And I'm girly without being high maintenance."

"I think you're both high maintenance." Hylla said walking into the house. Obvious sign she hadn't forgiven me for the straightener spaz this morning.

"Hey Hylla," Hope said.

"Hi." Hylla raised her hand in hello and walked back to where our rooms and the bathroom were in the bungalow.

"Okay, your turn to do the test." Hope said pushing the laptop onto my lap. I just clicked on the bubbles without paying much attention. They were just tests made by other people. And as much as they were our only contact with anyone off the island- that didn't mean they were automatically right. Ever.

"Reyna?" Hylla called.

"Yeah?" I said, filling in the last few bubbles.

"Did you see the welcome badge? That I'm supposed to have on my uniform?"

"No." I said clicking on 'submit answers'.

"Can you help me look?"

"No." I said as it loaded. She muttered –probably something very against me.

_You live for trends. They help make you look good, which is fine. But you can forget worrying about your look when you wear dark blue nail polish, which will look nice but slightly irregular, so you can finally feel confident and stand out._

"Miss Trend over here," Hope said bumping into my shoulder.

"Living for trends. What a purposeful life," I muttered.

"Don't worry, we'll find you some dark blue." Hope said, as Hylla walked past us again.

"At supper you are _so _explaining to me why this was in your room." She said doing the 'I've got my eyes on you'.

"You went in my room!" I protested.

"It's my house," Hylla said making a face.

"Circe's land," I said.

"I got the job first," she said, swinging the door open. I rolled my eyes at her and she left too.

"Hey," Hope said. "If Hylla just took her five minute break, doesn't that mean that we're due at the pool…"

"In five minutes!" I said. Hope clicked the 'off' button on the remote, I shut down the computer and we both bounced to our feet, and ran as fast as we could back to the spa area.

I wondered if I'd have ran just as fast if I'd have known what was coming.

* * *

><p>I was putting a colourful drink down next to a woman covered in some hydration cream and wearing a bright bikini.<p>

"Circe's Orange Coconut Smoothie Deluxe," I said. I hated listing the orders. What kind of idiot forgot what they ordered in five minutes' time?

"Does it have a vitamin boost?" She asked, not moving an inch to keep the cream from scrunching and ruining.

"Umm, no." I said. "Sorry miss." Did she think she was seriously not getting enough vitamins? Lying in the sun drinking fruit smoothies all day begged to differ. I was about to force feed it to her, but I picked it up and put it back on the tray. I manoeuvred around the pool, stepped over a trail of baby turtles that were dragging their way to the pool for a dip.

I stopped to take an order, dropped off a C.C. Citrus Shake, and got to the hut where everything came from.

"There's supposed to be a vitamin boost in the Orange Coconut," I said. The counter girl, Monelle, smiled at me with perfect white teeth.

"They're picky today?" She asked. I motioned my hand to my temples in a finger gun manoeuvre. Monelle laughed and emptied a package in the smoothie. "Hang in there. Here's the Berry Bazooka for the lady on the bottom pool, Brazilian Fruit Forest for the one on the left hand side pool you've got on the top floor, and you can just give this to the leopard on the diving board." She said dropping two smoothies and a strip of ham on the platter.

"Thanks," I said before heading off to the glass elevator that went inside the mountain. Tubes filled with tropical fish and others that were actually water slides twirled around the elevator like a candy cane. One girl shot past me, her arms crossed over her chest, and screaming bloody murder. She had _definitely _jumped into the tube from the top of the mountain… I hated the rush.

Other than that, I could see my reflection perfectly. I looked like Hylla except younger, and I'd barely ever tied my hair if I wasn't working in the kitchen. Getting brown highlights had been a way to see if clients wouldn't ask me 'do you have a sister?' They still did. I guess we had the same dark eyes- nearly shark black, and they seemed to stay shark black no matter what kind of contacts Circe put in. Maybe it was the hard and distinct features that Circe said would make great models. I'd never agreed to that. I'd always thought there was more to it than a model, but I wouldn't know.

The elevator stopped at the top floor and I stepped out. This was where all the best slides started and where people could go hand gliding from.

"Here's your smoothie, Mrs. Bowyer." I said putting it down next to her.

"Thanks, hon." She said, blindly reaching out for it, as to not move her face and crinkle the seaweed aloes wrap. Her hand was held out and Hope was painting sky blue nail polish on her nails. She looked up and grinned at me. I saw lids of bottles and various nail filing kits in her white coat's pockets.

Hope held out her hand and I tickled her fingers, held on, and blasted my hand away like a rocket ship.

"See you at the luau." She said.

I wondered if I'd have left if I'd known that they separated the prisoners by where they'd been captured.

* * *

><p><span>Hylla<span>

My hands were chained behind my back, and my jaw locked. My cheek stung like crazy where it'd been cut, and my heart thumped like the little drummer boy.

"Hylla…" A voice behind me said.

"I know, Rey, I know." I said. "Just hold on."

We marched across Circe's island in flames and ashes behind everyone else on the island, and I couldn't believe it. I'd been so sure this was going to be safe, and now my sister walked on ruins with ancient guns pointed at us from nearly 360 degrees.

They loaded us into different ships.

"He stole me ship, that swine of a lad… Children of the sea think they govern it. We'll show that stupid Percy Jackson!"

_My thoughts exactly, _I thought as Blackbeard called that out.

He shot his gun in the air, making us all jump. He yelled again; "I'll get the old girl back! I'll get the old girl back!"

The pirates cheered and I felt the fear collecting in my throat. I looked up at the sky.

"Mother, help." I whispered. I'd never prayed before. I'd always ignored the fact there was someone up there to pray too, but now I needed help. Reyna needed help. And Circe couldn't give it to us; I'd been there when her body had thudded to the ground, and I'd watched Blackbeard slide his sword out from her chest.

"Walk, girl, walk!" The pirate said kicking at my shin with his wooden leg. It'd been gnawed a bit by the guinea pigs.

The wood was hard but I did what he said and tried to ignore it.

"The two lassies in the back, in my own ship!" Blackbeard called. Oh no, that was us...

He divided his men; some of them were to follow the Queen Anne's Revenge and the two who'd stolen it and blew the island apart. Percy Jackson and the blonde. The name set my teeth on edge already.

The rest were to take prisoners at sea, but Reyna and I weren't with them. We were with Blackbeard himself, and another small group of prisoners, and I was very, very afraid. I noticed that most of them had been high in charge of the island. Circe wasn't there, of course. Circe was dead. The idea haunted me and made me shiver. But I saw Valentina the vet, Maisie the head hair stylist, Paulette from the cosmetic centre, Tabitha who'd been Circe's right hand in everything... And then me, head of client service. And Reyna dragged with. Oh no…

An old man with a limp and no shoes took us into a ship and to the bottom; a place that I knew was a cargo hold. They threw me against the wall and I heard a second thump, and Reyna's cry of surprise.

"The Captain will see to you soon," he said. "Pray to the god of your choice now." He added darkly before going back above deck, slamming the door. I jumped towards it but there was a click and I knew it was locked.

"No!" I slammed the door and dropped my head against it.

"Hylla?" Reyna asked. I took a deep breath and turned around.

Only 12, but tall for her age, she got to my shoulders. Her black hair was loose down her back, except for two gold braids, on either side of her head. Her eyes were scared, like whenever a victim realised that Mistress' milkshake was more than a treat.

"Come here," I said. She came to me and buried her face in my shoulder. I wrapped my arms around her. I hadn't done that in a long time, even if it used to be daily activity. I'd been taking care of her from the time she was six, up to whatever age she'd started not wanting to be taken care of anymore.

After Dad died in that police shooting in Atlanta, I'd had absolutely nowhere to go. It was a mix of mixed up planes from the foster family that was supposed to take Reyna and I to a state home in the south of the state, and sheer luck that we'd gotten to Circe's island.

I'd sworn I'd take any option I could, any option that would stay far from guns and violence long before we got there. The state home would separate us, and I couldn't let that happen; violence had ripped my family once, I wouldn't let it do it twice. I couldn't believe I'd watched Dad clean his gun in the living room in the evenings, and that I'd even asked to shoot it once. He'd smiled and called me my mother's daughter, saying that one day I'd be able to do that kind of thing. Violence disgusted me after I saw my father's bullet wound, which was also technically the last nail in his coffin. Circe's island was too good to be true, and now you couldn't tell it'd ever been anything if you looked.

"It'll be okay, we'll get out of here." I said.

"How?" She asked. "No potions, charms, or weapons." Reyna said. The door clicked open and we scrambled back and away from each other.

Blackbeard was flanked by two other pirates as he looked around. He was a big man, and I was pretty sure there were shoulder pads in his crimson jacket. _The colour of blood, _some part of me kept thinking. He had tied wicks laced with gunpowder in his hair, and Circe had told me that this barbarian lit them during battle. Just for show, of course. He wore bandoleers packed with guns, pistols and knives, which added to the two already on his side. He was a walking artillery unit that the US military would sit up and beg for! His name hadn't been given lightly, as he had a rugged bear like wire covering most of his face. But I could still see his blood lusting dark eyes. And they landed on us.

"So it's true, eh? Two daughters of Bellona; landed on an island of a spa. Ha! You are out of place, wenches."

"Don't call us that," I said.

"I'll call you what I like, wenches. You should be thankful you and I are half-siblings, and unfit to be my wife."

I clenched my teeth.

"But perfect for prisoners. Dangerous prisoners maybe, but that's why you're in a different room, is it not? And it's part of the fun. The thrill…"

_Some thrill…_

"You- I remember- fed us every day and never tried to let us out." He said pointing at me. "And you were always on the heels of the witch." He turned to Rey. "As for you- you're her sister; enough damage right there. We'll keep you here for as long as we like."

"Let us go." I said.

"No," Blackbeard said. "_You _be the caged one now. And watch your sister suffer to it; as I watched my crew."

"Let her go! At least her! Do whatever you want with me, but not her!" I cried.

"If I'd let her go," Blackbeard said, "She'd walk into the Sea of Monsters. You want that?"

"It must be pretty sad that _you're _our best option." Reyna snapped at him.

"Reyna!" I hissed. Blackbeard raised his rifle and pointed it directly at her head. My heart froze and went into hyperactive mode. Don't shoot, I prayed. Because if he shot…

"You're the prisoner. The prisoner has no power. Stop acting like you have it. Is that clear?"

Reyna shut up, but her eyes told the story.

"Perfect," Blackbeard said. "We're sailing for England. Then we'll see what you'll be good for."

He left, leaving us alone. Reyna sunk to the floor, leaning back on her arms, her head turned away from me.

"Reyna-"

"Don't talk to me."

"Rey-"

"Don't talk to me."

"Yeah but-"

"I said don't, Hylla!" She yelled. "You didn't want me to learn to fight. You didn't want me to learn how to be strong, and now you're _asking _me to be strong? What the heck?"

"Reyna I never thought this would happen…"

"We're demigods! Blackbeard said it even if you never admitted it when I asked! Bellona's the war goddess isn't she? Even worse! How could you think we'd never need to fight?" She yelled at me. I tipped my head back.

"I don't know Reyna. I just wanted you to be safe."

"Well I'm not, and _you're _not, and _nobody _is." She said.

I bit my lips.

I could feel the waves on the boat as we sailed away from the island, on a ship we were prisoners in. Suddenly there was an explosion. Reyna and I ran over to the tiny porthole window, and I saw a fireball in the distance. The island…

I put a hand to my mouth and nearly cried.

"See?" Reyna said, her eyes filling up with her own tears and bitterness. "Nobody's safe." I blinked my tears away.

"It'll be okay." I managed. I tried to talk to her again but she ignored me. She gave me the silent treatment.

I could hear laughing pirates and footsteps above me, shooting into the air for the fun of it and drunk with victory and possibly stronger stuff; but not my sister's voice.

I felt miserable, but I didn't cry, because Reyna was still looking at me from the corner of her eye.

We were completely alone, and even worst because Reyna refused to talk to me for the whole day. She probably hated me more when we heard them say goodnight to each other and go to bed. One day, that'd been.

She might not be talking, but I knew we both wondered how many days it'd be.


	2. The Cat with Nine Tails

**Alright: so I didn't forget this story- I never would, it's already all writen down and you were all so nice in the reviews. But my Beta and I have been experiencing cases of TDTGH (teacher decide to give homework) and its been overwhelming both of us, and if either I'd have pushed her, or I'd have tried to publish last week I think we'd both have died. So think about it; your patience saved lives. Thank you. Thank you dearly.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson, Heroes of Olympus, Hylla, or Reyna.**

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><p>2<p>

The Cat with Nine Tails

I was scared.

So, so scared.

It sounded stupid to be scared because you were alone but I couldn't help it, I was scared stiff. Circe's island had always been my sanctuary, Hylla had always been my safety blanket no matter how mean and busy of a safety blanket she'd been. Without either one of them, I felt exposed and vulnerable, like a turtle on its back.

Turtles… Hope and I had found one on the island once, when we'd been feeling rebellious and had left a luau early. We'd poked around the forests pushing each other into bushes and skipping from rock to rock. We'd laughed and laughed and we were being so loud… That's when Hope had found the turtle. She'd decided to just pick the turtle out, but when it tried to snap at her she'd dropped it in the creek going 'snapping turtle!' We watched the turtle flip onto its stomach like nothing happened and swim along, and we both laughed.

That seemed so stupid now, to laugh at a stupid turtle. Laughing at anything looked stupid. Hope was gone, it was like Hylla had abandoned me, the island was destroyed, and I was way too confused to think anything through.

I hadn't thought about this ever happening before. Losing our home, suddenly having to move… I should've. That's what Hylla had said happened to us once when I actually _did _get her to talk about dad and who he'd been and what had happened (I'd been six when he died, and anything that wasn't from the island felt blurry in my head now). But now it just came like an earthquake, destroyed everything and…

The door opened and a kid maybe a year or two older than me came in. He was wearing torn trousers and a baggy white shirt stained with different things. His thick brown hair was overlong and a mess- Circe should have fixed him up before turning him into a guinea pig. He'd have ended up a rat if she wouldn't. The only nice thing about him was his eyes- green like gemstones. Maybe Circe would've kept his eyes as a guinea pig.

"Are you… Crying?" He asked.

I realised I was and cursed myself.

"No," I said. "Leave me alone!"

"I was sent to bring you food."

"I don't want your food."

"You sure you don't want this?" He raised a bowl of god knew what was in there. Oh; god_s _apparently now.

"No. Leave me alone." I said. He looked at me for a second. I didn't want him looking at me. I didn't like him just scrutinising me when I was out of my element.

"Don't cry." He said.

"Don't tell me what to do!" I yelled at him.

"Ladd! Shut up the prisoner!" Someone from above yelled. The guy looked at me once again.

"Put it there," Hylla told him. For some reason he listened to her before closing the door again. I brought my head to the wall and cried again.

"Reyna…"

"No Hylla." I snapped at her. "Leave me alone."

Gods, why?

* * *

><p>He was so rough and rude Circe would have turned him into a slug or something even more disgusting.<p>

"No!" I struggled against the chains holding me to the wall. I wanted to get them to _take their hands off of my sister._

"Rey- stay, don't, you'll just hurt your-"

They kicked the door shut, cutting Hylla's words short; and they dragged her up the stairs. I heard her struggling the whole time. And then it was quiet.

"Is she still…" I didn't finish my sentence. I balled up in a corner trying to melt in with the wall. They'd just… Taken her… What were they going to do? My heart beat fast and I felt more tears swell up in my eyes, for the X time in X days.

* * *

><p>The boy leaned forwards to try and touch my face but I bit at his fingers.<p>

"Ouch!" He said. He looked at his fingers, and pearls of blood started squeezing from the skin.

"Seriously?" He asked.

"Stay away from me." I told him. "I will draw blood."

Hylla had disappeared days ago, and I hadn't seen her since the first time the boy came. I was not in a favourable mood. I hadn't seen her since and thinking about what was going on with her… I rather not think about it. I was scared that if the boy touched me, I was going to disappear and never come back either. I wasn't going to let them throw me away like the girls at the spa did with empty shampoo bottles or expired make up.

He sucked on his finger.

"You okay?" He asked.

"No." I said. "Get away from me. Arm's length. Two for the heck of it."

I was surprised when he actually did.

"You bite hard."

"Leave."

"You're chained to the side, you can't do anything about what I do, by the way." He said.

"You think I don't know that?" I snapped. The shackles were heavy and they hurt my wrists. They cut into my skin and weighed my limbs down. My arms were _killing _me. I'd never even carried something as heavy as they were.

"Look; I just want to put this on your face." He said holding up a kind of lotion. "Please?"

"I don't know what that is," I told him. "I'm not stupid. It could be rat poison, or some slow and painful poison."

"It's not."

"I won't let you hurt me!"

"I'm not going to hurt you," he said.

"That's what everyone's always told me! Back off."

"I'm at two arm's length already."

"Yeah, well go to a hundred. That'll bring you above deck."

"It'll bring me into the sea," he smirked.

"Even better," I said.

"Why are you so mad? They're all confused about that; even the quartermaster. You're not suffering, you're not crying, you're not nothing. But you used to live in a _spa_. How are you not even homesick? Much less breaking down."

I decided to shut my trap. I didn't know why I wasn't crying and pleading and whatever else prisoners did. I mean, sure, I felt horrible, my arms and legs were stiff from having to stay in one position so long, and my eyes were like weighed down by iron chains because I hadn't slept since Hylla had disappeared, and barely at all in the first day at sea. I'd never been filthier and I felt like screaming. But I held it together. Why? I didn't know, and I didn't want to talks about it. I didn't want to talk to this boy period- I didn't want anything to do with him.

Maybe I'd just turned all the tears I'd felt like shedding on the first day into cold anger, like water froze to ice. Maybe instead of being sad about losing my home, I got mad at the people who'd taken it. Instead of being mad at Hylla I was mad at the people who'd made Hylla fail. Actually, scratch that- I was still mad at her; at least a bit.

My genius plan to get rid of him was that he'd go away eventually if I gave him the silence treatment. Hylla had stopped talking to me too.

Okay; that might've been a little cold with my sister. She was trying to do her best, and I know that she's been killing herself to since Dad died, but… Her best wasn't good enough. She'd lied to me about her best, and I didn't like people letting me down. Making promises about things that they couldn't promise me, leaving without coming back, lying about truths they could have told… If Hylla couldn't keep me safe; then she should've just told me.

But now she was gone and I suddenly wanted someone to talk to, but not the sailor boy. I promised myself that if Hylla came back okay, I'd talk to her again. It was too lonely without Hylla, and too dark and new- I needed at least my big sister right now. For the first time in years I needed my sister.

"I don't get why they're keeping you." He said. I ignored him. He opened his mouth again, but closed it.

For the next –what was it, three days? - he kept coming back to give me food and water. He pestered me with questions every day and that just made me sick of him. I wanted to shut him up. He'd been going on and on for a few minutes now and I was sick of it. Finally he asked something about the other girls on the island, and I lost him. For some reason I got my feet in position, and launched myself towards him, shoulder aimed at the mouth, and I made contact with a crack that didn't sound that great.

He stumbled back after I fell back after the impact, and when I saw the blood, it was like I was a shark. It made me want to pounce on him even more; I wanted to hit him again. I could hurt him like he'd hurt me. I really could. The chains held me back as I thrashed like a demon.

He slid himself back and sat up, touching his lower jaw. He winced at the contact.

"Owe." He said.

"Where's my sister- where are you taking us- why do you keep coming!" I yelled at him.

Tears: gone.

Anger: out in the open.

The door opened and I saw Blackbeard and a couple of thugs. The pirate had wild hair and his teeth were yellow with filth and time. He was badly shaven and disgusting. It nearly hurt to look at him.

Blackbeard turned to the boy.

"What's yer problem, lad?" The captain grunted. Fear suddenly rose in my throat as the pirate saw the blood. I had a feeling I couldn't catch him off-guard like I might be able to catch the kid by surprise.

"You let yourself get hit by a lass? A lass in chains at that?" Blackbeard said. "Ha! Barely worth bringing to sea, landlubber." He grunted at the boy. He spun to me.

"'Give no quarter to the sisters' they told my. Aye! They were right! Bring her. And the boy."

They'd taken Hylla somewhere and who knows what they did to her. Whatever it was: they weren't doing it to me.

A pirate approached me but I got to my feet, ready to pounce. I gave them looks. I didn't like the sound of 'give no quarter' and I rather be with the sailor boy than with Blackbeard.

"Stop your games," Blackbeard said. "If not, we'll bring your body up."

I didn't relax my position, but a pirate tried to approach me and I swung my leg for a kick. It swept his legs and he crashed down. I nearly smiled, or yelled a taunt; but another caught me from behind, wrapping his arms around me and crossing his leg to hold my ankles together.

"Let me go- let me go- don't touch me!" I yelled. I let out the shrillest yell I could to try and get them to back up. For a second they hesitated, but they ignored my screaming soon enough, and I stopped. I tried to lean forwards to bite his arm but I knew I couldn't- he was way too heavy and strong for me.

"Lad, untie her." Blackbeard said giving the boy with the bleeding mouth a key. He put it in the keyhole and suddenly my shackles dropped from the wall. The floor beneath my feet was rocking back and forth and unstable. My legs gave out from under me, and the pirate who hadn't been expecting to prop me up landed on top of me. _Gross_. I could smell alcohol and sweat on him, and he was way too heavy.

Blackbeard laughed at me.

I turned a deep shade of red as the pirate got up, and one of his friends tied my wrists together with a bit of string. He kicked me, so I'd get up. A simple 'get up' followed by insult of choice would've been fine too.

"Find your sea legs, girl, we won't have you stumbling around our ship. Be good on the way out, or you'll walk the plank." Blackbeard warned. I at least knew what _that _was in pirate dialect, and I knew I didn't want that. I walked in the narrow staircase to the deck.

My eyes sprawled and I thought my eyes and lungs would explode when I popped out of the hull. The sea air smelt fresh and salty- and the sun shone bright, reflected on the water. The water… It stretched out for miles and miles and miles of just that; water. No islands, no boats… I saw the bumps of what I thought looked like a sea monster's back once, but that was it, and I wasn't even sure about it.

It was so beautiful…

Unlike the deck.

Sailors were going around mopping the deck, tying knots and drinking. Drinking a lot. They had one guy in the crow's nest, looking out at sea. Music was playing and everyone on deck looked really happy- except for one person; Hylla.

She stood near the mast, her ankles and wrists chained together. Her clothes were tattered, and her hair had fallen down her back, undone from the strict ponytail she liked to wear. Even if I was fuming mad at her, even if she looked horrible, I nearly cried of relief. She was still alive.

"Your sister's a pain," Blackbeard told her. "Even worse than you were- little ball of furry she is. Tie her to the mast, boys. Give her a taste of the cat of nine tails." He told a big man with a missing eye and a badly shaped and unshaved face. What? They had a cat? What kind of cat had nine tails?

The man Blackbeard had talked to smiled a crocodile grin with a few gold teeth showing, but before I could get a better look at him or figure out who he was, or find the cat, I was pushed to the mast. My head hit it and smacked away, and for the few seconds I was seeing stars, my arms were set free, wrapped around the mast, and tied together. I tried to struggle, and suddenly I felt a blow on my back. It felt like nine blows at once. Except it wasn't a blow like getting hit or falling on your back; it sent searing pain up my back and made every nerve in my body yell.

Hylla yelled something, I yelled in surprise and pain, and I got hit again. It felt like a whip, but nine whips at once. How did they get that? Were nine pirates going..?

TSHHHH

I couldn't wonder, the pain made my thoughts scratchy and unclear. It was like an anchor- I could let my thoughts run in any way but it always came back to the pain of the whips. And even that started getting fuzzy in my head, all that I knew was that I was in so, so much pain. Thank whoever I was to thank now that these gods had come out of nowhere that I got to keep my shirt. For more reasons than that.

"You know what that is?" Blackbeard asked me. I locked my jaw and closed my eyes. I mentally prepared myself for the next hit, but it hurt just as much.

"Cat o' nine tails, whip with nine lashes." I muttered, not knowing how I knew.

_Daughter of Bellona- war- AH! _

"Your inborn knowledge, that'd be, lass." Blackbeard said. "Unfortunately that won't ease the pain one bit."

Hylla screamed more than I did. I locked my jaw, bit my lip and tried to think about anything but my back exploding in pain and the muscles burning and the feel of blood. 3 things I wasn't used to, and I nearly lost it. Black visions danced across my spots- umm, black spots danced across my vision.

_Hope. Asia- the leopard, Hylla's pets. Her litter of cubs- tiny balls of fur with their eyes still closed because they were so young. Fighting with Hylla about their names…_

My head went slack against the mast and my knees started to give out. I slid down until I made impact with the floor, and that just sent a ripple of more pain and impact through me.

"Reyna!" Hylla yelled desperately. I managed to turn my head and meet her eyes. Tears swarmed hers and that got me mad. They could hit me- fine. I guess I _had _technically deserved it by disobeying, it wasn't in my place. But my sister was off limits.

I locked my jaw and kept from screaming at them that they ruined everything, because if they started hitting me again… I wasn't sure if I'd make it.

* * *

><p>It was a blur but next thing I knew I was back in the cargo hold with Hylla, and she was leaning over me. Or at least I thought, I was on my stomach. Usually I hated lying on my stomach, but if anything touched my back I thought I'd die. I realised I was lying on her business suit jacket that she somehow still had, and all she had now was her dress. The shapes of animals had stopped moving on the fabric; Hylla had lost her magic.<p>

"Are you okay?" I asked.

"Me? Oh my god, Reyna, you're the one to worry about." She said tears swarming her eyes.

I just felt the pain in my back. I'd never been in so much pain before. Sure, I'd gotten hurt when I was little. I'd missed a step on a staircase once or twice, growing pains and such, but it never hurt this bad. I wanted it to end; I wanted it to be over. I wanted to go home, but home wasn't there anymore.

I just started crying, I wasn't too sure for which of said reasons, and I lost conscience again.


	3. The Dagger and the Whistle

**Just wanted to say thanks for the reviews, sorry for the wait, and happy family day!**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson, Heroes of Olympus, Hylla, or Reyna.**

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><p>3<p>

The Dagger and the Whistle

I woke up again, half expecting everything to be over, half expecting Asia to be nudging one of my legs because I was late for something. This was of course a nightmare.

No; still in the pirate ship.

I wanted to pass out again; much more fun, and way less painful.

But I didn't'; Hylla was kneeling next to me, her eyes bloodshot and underlined with fatigue.

"You were right. This is my fault. I shouldn't have tried to protect you, I should've taught you, I should've taught myself I-"

"Hylla- stop!" I said. It was like during my sleep, someone had flicked a switch in my head. Suddenly it wasn't okay anymore and it wasn't worth crying over and it wasn't going to be something I _would_ cry over. Like the cat 'o nine tails had torn through any patience and tolerance I had to people pushing me around. Like it'd pushed me just too hard.

"It's not your fault, it's theirs! I'm sorry, I was just really mad and you were just there to be mad at." I said.

Hylla put her hand on my cheek and I put my hand over hers. When I was little she used to do that to make me feel better.

"So that kid above deck, the one around your age- you broke his jaw?" She asked.

"It bled." I said. Hylla smiled.

"I'm proud of you, Rey."

"What about you?" I asked. "Where have you been?"

She bit her tongue.

"Stop protecting me or I'll be mad again." I threatened. Hylla swallowed hard.

"They kept me above deck. You know; there were a whole bunch of other attendants there. Maisie, Tabitha, Valentina… They made me watch them walk off the plank. They tried to bring me to the railing to watch too." Hylla bowed her head and shook her head.

"I didn't cry, but I should've. Then they would've left me alone. It would have been wiser- but it doesn't matter now."

"So… They're all dead?" I asked, feeling hollowed out like Halloween pumpkins. Hylla nodded.

_The ones on the other ships probably didn't make it much longer- that means that Hope… No, don't think about it…_

"I'm sorry Rey."

"You shouldn't be sorry. The pirates should be sorry." I said. I tried to sit up, and my back started hurting even more. Hylla pushed me back down.

"They're not sorry." I said. Hylla looked at the hay on the floor- at a patch of hay soaked in blood- probably mine. Then she looked up and turned her head. I'd seen my sister angry, when I went in her room, took her stuff... But this was even worst. This was something more scary, like... I wasn't good with words, but _rage _seemed to fit in well.

"Then I guess we'll make them sorry."

* * *

><p>We'd been good little girls. We'd stayed seated in our corners when the pirates came down with our food and drinks. I think Hylla even said thank you once. We hadn't tried anything, snapped any comments… Blackbeard came to investigate that himself.<p>

"Broke your spirits, have we?" He mumbled. Hylla and I tipped our heads in silent shame (well, pretend silent shame) and he grinned.

"Ha! That'll teach you." He said before wandering back up deck. "Tell the provost that he won't need to worry about these two much anymore, Anthony, we've got ourselves some decent and calm prisoners."

They even took the shackles from around our ankles off, and let us walk around. But they'd tried to tame us or something like that- whenever they were going to come in, they wiggled their keys outside our door and that was our signal to go to the far wall and keep still and quiet.

To me, it felt like something you train a beast in a circus to do. It made me want to lash out at them _like _a beast.

Every single thing they did was like trying to force something into a jar. At some point the jar would crack. I felt like said jar, I just couldn't take in all these aggravating things and _not _have them build up inside me, like pressure in an engine. It could be tiny- like how they made noise by walking above deck when I tried to sleep, or it could be big, like kidnapping us.

I wasn't used to dealing with stress. Back on the island I'd just yell at Reyna or scream in a pillow or eat a lot of chocolate. Here? Not so much. Maybe it was better for me that I was learning to calm down, and keep my thoughts rational. Not that I didn't hate being here with every fibre and piece of my soul.

Hylla hadn't followed the 'hide once the keys chime' routine once. She'd stayed at the door's side. The pirate coming in had seen me and barely had had the time to register my sister wasn't at the wall when she jumped him. She pushed him in the back and threw herself on his back, putting all her pressure on him exactly right so he couldn't move.

But he'd called for reinforcements and they'd tackled Hylla off. They'd taken her upstairs and she came back wincing whenever she moved or got touched. I'd lied her down on her stomach and checked her back for scars- there were a whole bunch of them, twisting together like a spider web.

We'd had to be good for even longer to make up for that. This was our third month here and we had redeemed ourselves to the pirates for any biting, back-talking or tackling.

There was only one exception to that rule, and that was the annoying sailor boy.

It was weird but whenever he came up I couldn't help but snap at him, or when he asked a question I had to answer something sarcastic… It bugged me that he was on this ship- that the other pirates pushed him around because he was younger and acted like jerks- yet he hadn't moved a finger to help Hylla or I in any possible way. My head was screaming out to him that we could join forces. I didn't know how good he was, or if he had any idea or use. But it set me one edge. Hylla tried to calm me down but no can do. It was like seeing his ratty face made me angry.

But in the end; he was useful too.

Hylla and I woke up one morning and something felt different in the air.

Sleeping in the ship made me feel about six years old, because Hylla and I bundled up against the cold, and that was something we did when I was six years old. If I felt like something was wrong in the night- usually the night before a storm, or a big party arriving on the island, or someone feisty showed up- I'd go curl up with Hylla and she knew to beware. Maybe that was a daughter of Bellona thing- instincts for a fight or something like that. Or was that too fantastic of an explanation? I hadn't quite figured that out. To what extend powers and instincts went, or how I should react yet. What did demigods _do_?

"Rey- I think we should do it." She said. I looked at her with wide eyes, knowing exactly what she meant by 'it'.

"Are you insane?"

"It's been months Reyna," Hylla said. "We have to."

"Are you sure we're ready for it, though? Strong enough?"

"We're born to be strong." Hylla affirmed. I didn't mention the fact that she'd been a magical spa attendant for the last 6 years. "We can do this. Do you really want to stick around longer?"

"No but…"

"There." Hylla said like she might say 'case closed' if she worked in a court.

I bit my lip. I didn't know about this. We'd taken this very seriously until now, we'd planned it all out. But now that the plan was going to fall into action… Careful blueprints now looked like wax crayon drawings. Like a stupid little fantasy for something that would never happen, made up for the fun of it. Not actual use. I could see flaws like you saw holes in Swiss cheese, and I was sure the pirates would see them too.

But Hylla had said it; case closed. It was going to be today.

We got up as usual. If I could have one thing from the island routine back; it would've been showering every morning. I didn't have a mirror but I was sure that I was about as filthy as Hylla was, and whenever I touched my hair it was so greasy I felt sick.

I peeked through the little porthole. I could see the sun- and I'd gotten pretty good at telling time with it. The pirate with the watch and the missing leg and all the gold and daggers on him often came in with the annoying sailor boy, and it was always 9:15 when they gave us our food.

I always looked at the sky to see where the sun was at 9:15.

I was nervous that morning- what if I timed it wrong? What if everything collapsed because of me?

I took a deep breath.

_Born to be strong. _

The scars on my back tingled. It wasn't pain, it was like a reminder. I had survived the cat, and I hadn't thought I could. I could survive this too. I could push harder. And harder. And harder. I could push until I was at the top.

"Hylla- it's time." I said after a ten second exam of the sky.

She met my eyes and walked to the center of the room. I walked up to fac her. We took each other's arms like we were at a wrestling match.

"You remember the plan?" She asked softly.

"Yes," I said.

"Wait for the footsteps." Hylla nodded. I saw that she was just as pale as I thought I was.

"You look like a ghost." I whispered.

"Shh!" Hylla said. I heard footsteps and I pushed into Hylla- she pushed back. We started yelling to each other- stupid things that I would never in a million years tell her, not even when I was so mad that we'd gotten captured.

The steps froze.

I could picture the pirate pausing on the staircase to listen to us. Then the footsteps went faster. The pirate was running down. I heard a footstep and a _clock _instead of two footsteps; I recognised the sound of the pirate with the missing leg.

The door flung open- they didn't do that stupid key-jingling today.

It was the sailor boy and the pirate with all the treasure hanging on his belt.

"Ay! Wenches- stop that!"

Hylla just yelled at me some more.

"Boy, break it up! Ah, never mind, you're just as much of a wench as them!" He came in to try and break us apart but Hylla and I let go of each other.

We grabbed an arm each and Hylla tripped him. She took his handkerchief from his chest pocket as he fell and gagged him. He chocked and struggled- but Hylla had him locked in a power half that would make any professional wrestler wow, even if she only had one hand working on it.

I, on the other hand, sprinted towards the sailor boy.

He stared at me for a few seconds and turned back- but I grabbed his shirt, and pulled him inside. I got him in a bear hug –both of my arms wrapped around him, hands locked at his waist- and drove him into the wall. My heart pumped even faster (which was surely unhealthy).

"Are you going to shut up and keep quiet?" I asked him, trying to sound like the scary warrior I was supposed to be. He opened his mouth and I let my weight drop as I sat down, but whipped him to the left. He smashed to the ground and the momentum had him turned on his stomach, and me on his back, with my arms around his neck.

"If you don't agree in three seconds I'm chocking you. And you annoy and disgust the hell out of me, I won't hesitate." I warned.

"Get off my foot, its twisting…"

"So will your eyeballs if you don't cooperate!" I growled at him. Oh, yes, that sounded threatening. Good.

"Okay- okay- I- I swear on the Styx!" He said.

I didn't know what the Styx was, but it sounded important to him. Not a swear that you would break.

I loosened my grip around his neck and got up. I looked down at him.

"Don't move, or we're back to square one, understood?" I asked. He nodded. I turned on him and concentrated on Hylla's prisoner.

"He passed out," she said showing the gag. "He has a missing leg; probably why he has all the treasure. The pirates who got hurt during raids got a larger portion of treasure."

"How do you know that?"

"Circe told me." Hylla said. Circe… I thought back to the paradise island. I hadn't thought about it that much lately- the plan was the biggest thing lately. I shook the thought from my head- the plan was happening _now. _

Hylla drew a sword from his side and held the blade up to her face. It divided her face in two parts- and it made her look scary like hell. Like one of those women warriors: Boadicea, the Amazons, Joan of Arc… Maybe deep down, they'd been demigods too. Maybe daughters of Bellona, or other gods.

I drew a dagger from another sheath- made completely of gold.

"Odd dagger. Why is it gold? The others are bronze." I said.

"I don't know, but don't complain, we'll need it." Hylla said. She patted down the pirate and I had flashbacks of the people on the island getting massages…

_No._

Hylla found 4 more weapons, and a dog whistle.

"What does that do?" I asked.

"Your guess is as good as mine. Do you want it?"

It wasn't a weapon, it had use zero right now but I took it from Hylla and put it in my pocket. Who knew? Maybe it was valuable and could be used as a bargaining chip. Maybe it was worth money if we ever got to solid land.

I glanced back at the boy; he was staring at us. Behaving perfectly; he didn't move a muscle, didn't make a sound.

"Hylla, use that last spell." I said. Hylla took a jewelled comb from her hair. It was her pride and joy on the island. She put it in the boys' hair and it looked beyond strange. Actually seeing a small bit of luxury looked weird and… And for some reason it didn't look as appealing as I thought luxury would me. Maybe now it seemed… Unnecessary? As long as I had food, water, Hylla and a plan, I'd discovered I was okay. I wouldn't have said the same thing a few months ago. Then highlights, at least the clear polish on my nails, three meals a day (except without the calorie inducing items that I couldn't even remember now), a break from the spa every now and then to run around with Hope had been on the priority list. Wow, that all seemed _useless _right now. Had I ever been that much of a Barbie? A nagging voice told me that yes.

Hylla whispered a magic word and the blood drained from the boy's face. His recent memories were being sucked away. And then the comb disappeared.

"I'm sorry you lost it." I said. She shrugged.

"That's old. It's not part of who I am anymore. This is a new bit of the story. Our bit." Hylla said. We squeezed hands and took inventory of what we'd earned.

A dagger made entirely of gold, a sword, a ring that could be twisted and turned into a spear- something that Hylla had detected.

"No shields though…"

"That's okay, we'll practise without shields." I said. We heard the floorboards above us creaking and Hylla and I immediately hid everything under a pile of straw we'd already gathered, and cowered in the same corner for extra cover.

Another pirate ran down the stairs and saw the two others.

"Oy! What is this, lass?" He called up at Hylla.

"He… He tripped and… And lost conscience…"

"What about the boy?" The pirates asked turning towards the boy.

"R-ran into h-him," I 'stuttered' pointing towards the other pirate. "Kn-Knocked his h-head on the d-d-door frame…"

"Aye," the pirate said. "Useless landlubber. We should have made you walk the plank with the prisoners. Oh well," he turned to Hylla and me with a dark smile. "Next time."

Then he noticed the missing treasure.

"What happened to it?"

"To what?" Hylla asked.

"His weapons and whatever else the dope wanders around with." The pirate said.

"He… He didn't have any…" Hylla said.

"He was worried. Something about us…" I squinted my eyes and pretended to find the idea foreign, weird and totally impossible "…Stealing?"

The pirate rolled his eyes. He kicked the sailor boy until he woke up and I frowned even if I hated him. He was unconscient, come on. He opened his eyes, and blinked what I knew must be black spots out.

"Get up boy and help me drag this idiot above."

"My foot hurts." He said.

"Your foot is fine." The pirate said. The boy winced every time he put pressure on his foot, on the way up the stairs.

They shut the door and we waited for them to be above deck before falling into each other's arms.

"We did it!" I said.

"Well, phase 1 anyways." Hylla said. There was a smug look on her face.

"If I wouldn't have been on her side, I would've been scared Rey. That smile you've got?"

"Yours makes it look like we won the lottery or something." I replied, grinning more.

But we sort of had. We'd done even better than that. What would we do with a million dollars on a ship? But what we could do with weapons…


	4. Dreaming up a Plan

**Sorry for the wait guys. I know it sounded lame, but my brother spent some time in the hospital the week after I last posted (which I was conveniently at a girl guide camp for), which totally threw me off about all this uploading-my-stories thing and made me think this one was up already. Tee-hee, it wasn't.**

**Anyways, enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Reyna, Hylla or Circe's spa. Or Camp Jupiter. Ooh, but I own the goddess! YES!**

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><p>4<p>

Dreaming up a Plan

Midnight had become my favourite time of the day.

If I made it to midnight; it meant I'd gotten myself one more day on this ship, same for Hylla, and we'd made it.

And midnight equalled swordfighting.

Here's what Hylla had discovered about pirates while she was tied to the mast for them to celebrate the fact they'd escaped from Circe's; after such a long time without spotting an enemy ship and maybe a little hint from us, they'd realised that they weren't in competition to be the scourge of the seven seas now; they were the only pirates. So they took everything so much less seriously; they often got drunk at night. And those who weren't passed out a little everywhere on the ship slept like logs.

Which meant they didn't wake up.

Not even if we made _a lot_ of noise.

So every midnight, Hylla and I dug the weapons out from under the stack of hay and practised.

We had four daggers and one sword- we took turns with the sword. I was scared the first time. My experience with blades went to butter knives and occasionally chopping vegetables. What if I was too weak to hold the weapon up? How did I even hold this thing? I'd never been allowed to even _watch _when other people came to the island, and they were the only ones armed. Peeking through windows with Hope shoving me for her turn wasn't a good way of observing sword fighting as they tried to resist.

I still missed Hope- the only person on the island I'd really talked to apart Hylla and Circe. I didn't know if she'd walked the plank, if she'd been brought as a prisoner to be sold as a slave on another ship or if by some freak miracle she'd survived. I wasn't sure which one I'd wish on her more; Hylla and I stealing weapons was one thing- but Hope? No, she wouldn't be able to do it. I hadn't thought I would, but just thinking about Hope doing that… It didn't work in my mind, like a kind murderer or a philosophical psychopath.

Hylla couldn't give me any advice because her guess was as good as mine, and I was the first one to use the sword. She was trying to make up to me again, and I appreciated it- because as scary as it was (what if we got discovered?) this was exciting beyond measure for me. It felt like I was doing something I was born for. I didn't have a clue how good I'd be, if I'd even be somewhere 'acceptable' on the scale of skills, but it was exciting.

It turned out that it was in my head already. How to hold a sword, how to swing, the reflexes to lift the weapon and block Hylla's blade… I could do it if I just let my mind go on auto-pilot. All those tricks and feints in movies; no, not at all. Those came with time, but the basics were already, like some violent and pretty awesome instinct.

It didn't hurt that it was also fun like hell.

I swung the sword and disarmed Hylla, who was defending just as much as I was. I whipped the sweat off my forehead.

"Good Reyna," Hylla said. She knew a thing or two about swordplay from the movies she watched, the ones I hated but wished I could see now. Oh, and sheer instinct.

I hesitated and she saw it.

"What's wrong? Do you think I'm going easy on you again?"

"No," I said. "It's just that… We've got instincts. They've got years and years of strength and technique training. What if we're not enough? Feints and all that… even the easiest and worst ones will surprise us if we ever _do _fight them."

"We're going to be okay." Hylla insisted, tilting her chin up.

"I don't want to risk it."

"Well, what do you suggest?"

"We need to see the pirates fight and learn from what we see." I told her, just as soon as the idea burst into my head.

"You're kidding? Reyna- the only reason they'd ever take us above deck was to give us a taste of the cat!"

"Exactly." I said, "So let's deserve it and get it done."

Her jaw drop.

"Reyna don't you dare do that! You'll have to stop training if they hurt you and then you'll fall behind."

"How are you going to stop me, exactly?" I asked crossing my arms. She might be my sister, she might be the best I had right now; but she wasn't going to stop me.

"I won't let you put yourself in danger." Hylla said. "What if they decide they've got enough of the cat and throw you overboard? Reyna- they're getting restless about keeping us, and feeding us."

"Then they'll attack us when we're stuck in this cell anyways! And when they do, I _won't _stand like an idiot who doesn't know what she's doing!"

"You _do _know what you're doing! Reyna- you're better than anyone I've seen landed on the island or anything!"

"Well that's not enough! Stop thinking that everything is enough Hylla- it was enough on the island, now we're here; I don't want it to be that it was 'enough with our instincts' and then we're both dead!"

Immediately I realised how harsh my words were.

"Okay," Hylla said finally. "I'll…" She struggled for words.

"Thank you." I told her because I couldn't say 'sorry'.

"Rest up then. Let's hide the weapons and sleep."

"It's not even sunrise yet." I said.

"Sleep." Hylla said so firmly I didn't dare argue.

We didn't bundle up against the cold as usual, and I didn't think for a second that Hylla was asleep. I felt like we were back to square one- ignoring each other. I guess the common enemy and worrying about each other, being left depending on one another for company, support and so forth had done good to us. It had brought us together in a way we'd never needed to be together in the first place.

That worried me. What if we kept drifting apart after we learned to use weapons? When we got our sea legs and were able to stand on our own? The thought gave me shivers and made me feel horrible- two things that I soon learned nobody should feel as they fall asleep. Especially half-bloods.

* * *

><p>I was standing in large fields, and if I squinted I saw buildings and what looked like a fort in the distance.<p>

"The fields of Mars," a voice said behind me. "They fight here."

I spun around as fast as the wind to face the voice.

The woman was tall and she stood straight, with dark eyes and hair pulled in a bun. She was wearing an army uniform, the cap pulled over her head. She had an M16 over her shoulder and a short sword at her side- which was the only thing that seemed out of place in her army uniform. Her eyes made me shiver- like Hylla mad, except I hadn't learnt to live with this woman when she was mad. Something told me that nobody was left _to _learn to live with it when she was mad.

"Of course, none of it is real. Some of the action lacks because the adrenaline doesn't pump as it would in a war, but it's as close to a fight as I'm going to get in –oh, I'd say a few years." She examined me and I immediately straightened up more than I already was. I met her eyes and she nodded, like she approved of that.

"Hello Reyna," she said. "I'm Bellona."

"My mother." I said. Suddenly her resemblance to Hylla made sense.

"Yes," she nodded. "And I must say I'm quite proud to be your mother right now."

I waited for her to go on because I didn't understand that. I was caught in the cell of a pirate ship with no plan, no future, and at the mercy of disgusting slobs. If that was her pride and joy, I didn't want to see the rest of her life.

"You've never touched a sword your whole life, not even a knife, you've went from five star living conditions to the pirates, you've toughened up, you've adapted… Like a warrior." She said, and I knew what she was talking about.

For a second I didn't want to talk because I wasn't sure how she'd take it. How did the Romans treat their gods? I had no idea. I'd never even watched a movie on it, or read (then again, I'd barely read anything, period).

"Permission to speak," the goddess requested.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"If you break your spear in combat; you need to be able to take out your gladus and run them through with that. If their numbers were bigger than yours; you need to go from offense to defence. If they surround you, worst case scenario is an orb formation with your cohort." – "Whatever a cohort was- "See, a battle is never a straight line or scripted. It's like a snake in the grass- it slithers and slithers until it bites. And sometimes, yes, they're venomous and you drop dead in a matter of hours. But that's what warriors do."

"Warriors win fights." I said.

"No," Bellona said. "They try. And if they don't try, they die. And sometimes even when they do try they die."

"Well I don't want to be a warrior then, I want to be a winner. I need to win this- if I don't… They're not going to be merciful like this forever, sooner or later they'll have enough and they'll kill Hylla, then me. Or me then Hylla. Probably me first since they have a thing against Hylla before they have it in store for me and it would really throw her off and shake her up before they…"

I stopped talking. That was a _horrible _thing to say! Freak, I didn't want my sister to go through mental and emotional torture!

"You're thinking like a soldier," Bellona nodded, as if to urge me on. "That's good, very good Reyna…

Blackbeard… Child of Mars, one of your ugly stepbrothers I'm afraid. Those can't even respect a warrior's honour or tactic outside their ranks, as long as it works for them and it involves blood. So yes, I'm afraid that you _are_ going to have to be exceptional with this."

That wasn't very encouraging.

"But you can do it."

"How?"

"For one thing; listen to your sister. She's not wrong, you know. Hylla's barely ever completely wrong- instincts are key. You can know every move in the universe, every feint, every manoeuvre- but if you can't figure out when is the right time to raise your sword, you might as well not. But she's not completely right either- instincts aren't everything. You need to know how it works."

"So… you want me to go get myself the cat tomorrow?"

"What I want shouldn't matter." _You've got an M16, _I thought. _What you want matters plenty. _

"I'm not the boss of you- you're the one who's going to be out there. You decide if you want to take another taste of the cat or not. You adapt. I'm big on that; adaptation. I was a Sabine goddess at first, but then the romans adopted me as they took my original people into slavery and prostitution, although most of them died right there and then. Do you know how the Sabine fought? Never mind, you don't. You'll have to look it up one day. Anyways, it's a lot different than Roman fighting. But I figured it out, became one of their most powerful minor goddesses and I even beat up Mars nowadays. Maybe you'll beat up someone who looks impossibly tall too."

_Blackbeard, _I thought. He was the jackpot.

On a smaller scale; I'd like to punch that boy in the jaw again. That was strangely satisfying. Maybe I could even _break _it.

"So what are they going to beat up?" I asked, pointing towards the fort. Bellona squinted.

"I'm not sure yet. Something bad is on its way. An old fight with old spoils and new blood will come. It has haunted the gods who were there for the first round came and passed and they've ruled in fear of it. A primordial fear, one that lives inside of your gut and won't go no matter what you do and how much of it you do."

_Like Blackbeard and me. _

"And now; we wait for the comeback." Bellona said. "You want to be around when it happens? Try making it through breakfast first, okay?"

* * *

><p>I sat tight and waited for the pirate to come give us breakfast, telling myself I didn't feel like throwing up.<p>

Hung over pirates in the morning –or anybody in the morning- were easy to provoke, so I was hoping that that would be the case both with our warden and with the ones on deck.

I heard the keys jingle outside the door and Hylla went to the wall. I didn't. She looked at me urging, but then remembered last night and turned her head. She didn't look at me. Not even a wink or anything.

I turned back towards the door, not looking at her either.

The door opened and the pirate in the doorframe raised an eyebrow, the boy holding two trays of food standing behind him.

"You're being daring again, wench." He scolded.

"Don't call me a wench."

I had no idea what 'wench' actually meant in old pirate talk. It sounded a bit like 'wrench' but I doubted that he even knew what that was, and it could just be my horrible skills as understanding people through thick accents hearing 'wench' instead of 'bench'. Either way it didn't sound like something I'd like to be called. There was an old trick that Circe told me about; it said that if you could put 'attorney in law' after your name, it was good. I didn't like 'Reyna Sabourin attorney in law and wench'.

The pirate raised an eyebrow.

"Shut your mouth and get back to the wall before I come in."

"Make me." I said- which was the ultimate taunt for the population of five years old and up.

"You'd be sorry if I did."

"You'd be sorry if you messed with me!" The scars on my back started tingling and I immediately knew I was in for it.

"I 'aint taking this from you. Boy! Go wake the provost."

I saw the sailor boy behind the pirate and I immediately felt bad again. He was like a trigger to a gun with my mood.

He hesitated.

"Must I?"

"We don't keep you 'round for your pretty face!" He barked. The boy hesitated, obviously afraid. The pirate smacked him so hard our food went flying to the ground and he staggered back against the stairs. My heart beat faster, like violence was the blood in the water, and I was the shark.

"Go!" He barked again.

The boy scrambled away and the pirate grabbed me in a head and arm.

I could've done a few things to get out of it. I could've wiped his hand off the back of my neck and freed myself.

But I didn't do that, I didn't fight, I barely resisted.

My head stuck under his arm, my nose begging me to cut it off so I wouldn't smell the horrible alcohol (twenty dollars this guy was one of those 'aggressive drunks') and sweat, he dragged me up the stairs and I kept hitting my ankles against the staircases. But I still let myself get dragged like a sack of flour.


	5. Hylla's Hurt

**I'm pretty angry with myself for not posting, but I've made a deal with myself to keep at it. Do excuse me, I've been sick and stressed and busy and tired and fanfiction hasn't been my number uno priority except for the one everybody reads, because I didn't want hoards of angry people at me. I forget about you guys though D: As said, I made a deal with myself to keep at it, so I'll do that and it'll get better. Enjoy!**

**Warning: This gets a bit more... Hinted at adult themes. If you watch Police Investigation shows you're probably alright, though.**

**Disclaimer: I own bupkis. Except for Andrew.**

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><p> 5<p>

Hylla's Hurt

My hands were getting tied around the mast expertly, my cheek pressed to the column of wood as my head was forced down. The rope burned against my skin as the sailor tied it with the skill of a girl guide. I knew what was coming. I breathed deeply- I'd be fine, I'd be fine, I'd be...

I looked around the deck at all the pirates. Some were snoozing, some were picking at their nails with switch-blade knives, doing this and that, mostly watching the provost and me. No sword fighting.

I started to panic- what if this was for nothing? Hylla was right- it'd been stupid. I was just going to get hurt, I'd retard the training for both me and Hylla, possibly get an infection…

The provost wasn't pleased to be woken up. The sailor boy who climbed the stairs before him had a red slap mark on his cheek already- which didn't make me see anything good in the horizon.

The provost must be the one in charge of discipline because he was the one who'd given me my first whipping- the one who'd drove me to steal weapons with Hylla and earn this taste of the cat. I looked over his face. Gold teeth, missing eye, uneven shape and a smile that said that he'd like this, and that I wouldn't.

I took a deep breath and close my eyes. I felt the nine lashes of the 'cat a millisecond after and I didn't yell but I twitched horribly and my jaw tightened. A few pirates got excited and cheered- the second taste was coming any-

_Snap! _The sound seemed to have an echo. So did the pain.

I took it, and took it, and took it.

This was pointless; it was just going to give me more scars, another night of insomnia and no training, and they were all staring at me, waiting for me to scream, waiting for me to cry and plead and they were going to _humiliate _me when I did.

What I did might not be the smartest, but it was the only thing that I could do.

I started cussing- which I used to never be caught dead doing before. Hylla would have a heart attack. Or would she? Funny how much we'd changed.

Anyways, the vocabulary was worthy of a sailor, thanks to what I heard the pirates talking about above deck, or calling each other names that I could guess from the reactions were bad.

The reactions on the boat were really violent. Like 'what?' As if they hadn't expected me to catch on to their ugly speak.

"Watch your mouth!" A pirate yelled. I saw a scabbard at his waist and I thought 'bulls-eye'.

"What- that's how I heard you calling him?" I told him, nudging my head to a pirate with a sword. I didn't even get whipped for that as the boat froze in shock.

"What?" The pirate I'd nudged my head at shouted. He grabbed my collar and ripped me free of the bonds. Black spots danced across my vision when I stood on my own for the first time and the pain in my back exploded as I asked it to hold me up.

"What was he calling me?"

I gladly repeated a few of the cuss words, feeling my insides shouting in victory. He dropped me, throwing me back. I sprawled on the ship floor, landing on my burning back.

"Get hold of her, Andrew." Blackbeard said. The sailor boy came forth and took both of my wrists.

So that was his name. Good to know even if I'd never call him that. Ever. I had meaner ideas in mind.

I resisted the impulse to wrestle against him and let myself be judged weak. That would only help later- in the _real_ fight. He looked at me and let go, guiding me by the elbow.

"You did, now did you?"

"The wench is lying!" The accused pirate yelled.

"So where'd she hear it, eh?"

"McLeon- Russell- stop it." Blackbeard said.

"You insulting me behind my back?" McLeon shoved Russell.

"No I 'aint."

"And now you lie?"

I was watching a fight for the first time in my life.

"You calling me a liar?" Russell shoved McLeon.

"I don't like that."

"Well I don't like you."

The shoved got harder and harder and harder. Eventually Russell drew his sword, and so did McLeon. I had to hold back a smile as both pirates engaged in a sword fighting. Andrew seemed just as shell-shocked as me because he froze and watched too.

* * *

><p>"And?" Hylla asked once the creaking steps had gotten distant enough to be out of ears' reach.<p>

"They're good," I told her. "All of them."

"How much did you see?"

I grinned.

"Like, nine fights broke out all over the deck. And I got a good look at a lot of them."

Hylla gave me a huge hug, completely forgetting how much of a jerk I'd been before breakfast and I would have been so relieved if it wouldn't have been for the huge wince of pain I gave. My back…

Hylla let me go immediately and lied me on my stomach to assess damage.

"Still bleeding, deeper than last time." She said. "I think you're right, they _are_ getting tired of us." Her face looked worried, her forehead wrinkled.

"I didn't tell you about my dream, did I?" I asked to distract her.

I told Hylla all about my dream, and my conversation with our mother, the war goddess.

Hylla nodded as she listened.

"You know what, rest. Tomorrow night you'll show me what you remember."

I had a moment of panic. What if I forgot?

Then it all came rushing back. What foot the weight of the fighter was on, how low he was… I was fine.

I think I muttered something like 'okay' before passing out like a rock.

* * *

><p>I screamed when I woke up and punched up.<p>

Thankfully it wasn't Hylla leaning over me (she wouldn't be stupid enough to do it anyways) it was the boy, Andrew. I didn't mind punching him.

He flew back and crumpled against the wall, holding his hand to his nose.

"Again?" He asked.

"You deserve it and you'd still deserve it if I did it a million times more," I spat. "What time is it? Midnight?"

"Nine in the morning. You've slept through the whole day and night."

"Why are you here? Where is my sister?" I asked. I didn't care what time it was.

"You should treat me with more respect." He said. I gave him a look like an alpha male to an omega. I did feel like that. He was a sailor boy who couldn't stand up to pirates. I was doing something and I was in worst state then he was. Somehow I felt like I was above him, no matter which one of us was in chains.

He shifted his weight.

"Why are you here?" I repeated. "And _where did Hylla go_?"

I looked around the room and suddenly panic filled me. What if they'd made her walk the plank? What if they'd shot her? What if..?

I grabbed him by the collar.

"You have five seconds to tell me where she is."

"None of my business," he mumbled.

"Would it be your business if I strangled you?" I said. He gulped.

"She's… On the… On the deck…"

"What are they doing to her?"

"I'll scream," he threatened.

"Then I'll break your jaw again and I'll find out where she is anyways. You want to do this the easy way or my way?" I growled at him.

"N-n-nothing." He stuttered. "N-nothing to h-h-her..."

"I don't believe you!"

"It's true-it's t-true!" He said, fear lighting up his eyes. I let him fall to the floor.

"You're pathetic. You know that? You let them push you around and you stay scared of your own shadow."

"And you're a symbol of rebellion?" He said, getting to his feet and dusting himself off.

"In case you wouldn't have noticed, I'm a prisoner."

"And you think that I'm not?" He said.

"Go walk the plank," I said. "If you wanted to do something, you'd get off your butt and stand up for yourself when you had the standing room to."

"Is that why you hate me so much?"

"It's a good 90% of why." I said. "The other 10% includes swearing and violent descriptions of what I'd like to do to you. I suggest you leave me, or I'll end up breaking your jaw again."

He looked at me, as if hurt.

"You're a daughter of Bellona. I was always told to stay away from daughters of Bellona. Fierce. They real you in with their looks and then you die, my brother always said."

"What a charming description," I sneered. And then he left me alone.

I sunk back in the corner, ignoring how badly my back hurt.

Not knowing where Hylla was… It was worse than the pain. If the boy was to be trusted –and I was beginning to believe that he wasn't lying- she was at least alive.

But horrible things can happen to you when you're still alive to feel it.

* * *

><p>I didn't let it show in my eyes how happy I was when they walked Hylla back into the room. When I saw my sister, relatively well, sit back down at the wall.<p>

The pirate didn't say anything at first, just looked at us, and Hylla who bundled up in the corner and looked away.

"Time you earned your hospitality, captain said."

"What hospitality?"

"Shut up wench," he said. "You start tomorrow. You'll scrub the deck 'til they're cleaner than they were when that witch of yours kidnapped us."

He looked at us for protest, but he got none; so he walked back out and up the stairs. One creaking plank, two creaking planks, three creaking planks, four, five…

"Hylla- thank gods you're all right!" I said, grabbing her in a hug. She hugged me back but it wasn't the strong hold I was used to. It was limp, like 'okay, let's just get something else over with'. I let go and sat down in front of her.

"What's wrong?" I asked. "Where does it hurt?"

"Nowhere," Hylla said, leaning on the wall and turning her head from me.

"Well… What's wrong? What did they do to you? The cat again? Or the iron rod?" Hylla turned her head to face the other side.

"There are a million different ways to torture people." She said, sounding tired and fragile, like glass on a road trip. Could break at any second.

That's when I got it in my head. A kind of hurt Circe told us to hate men for, to never trust men because of.

I froze in shock for a second, but I just curled up with Hylla. She needed it. Eventually she snaked her arm around me.

"I love you Hylla," I said. Her eyes didn't look away from the spot dead ahead where they were glued.

"Love you too, Rey." She said after a while, dropping her head on mine. I don't think we moved until the pirate came with the daily ration of mouldy bread and the metal water bowl. Then the only movement was when I shot him a look.

Had _he _been the one to hurt Hylla? Had he been laughing about it? Was it his idea? It didn't matter. It didn't matter because he'd done nothing to stop it.

I wanted to punish him for it. Make him pay because for some reason, he and his crew had decided to make Hylla pay. Make _us _pay. She'd never chosen her work for Circe. She'd taken the job she needed to survive and keep us out of the foster homes after Dad died, she'd done her work, she'd accepted the promotions… I was pretty sure she'd loved her job.

And I got that they were mad, even if my mind was roaring with the same thing I got when I looked at Andrew; bloodlust. I understood that this was their revenge after torching the island. I understood that they'd been captive, but it was like prison, it was actually even more generous than a prison would've been to them back in the time where they _were _the Scourge of the Seven Seas. They'd done horrible things, after all.

And now they were doing more.


	6. The Main Deck

**Who is totally proud of me for posting two weeks in a row? (Unless I messed up my days again... If so, the wait wasn't as bad as usual. I'll try and keep it that way but I have noooo time).**

**Anyways, I appreciate the imput in the comments, and enjoy the chapter while I go finish buying imaginary Costco produce! (Don't you love Microsoft Excel projects?)**

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><p> 6<p>

The Main Deck

I straightened up from the deck and pushed my bangs out of my hair.

"Keep a-working lassie," Blackbeard sneered at me. I resisted the urge to look over my shoulder and shoot him a look as deadly as one of his cannonballs. I got back on all four and rubbed the floor with a soapy rag they'd thrust into my arms along with a wooden bucket of water. My bangs fell back in my hair and I wondered why I'd ever bothered to grow and cut them nicely, they were impractical. They got in the way. So many things that had used to matter- hair, clothes, makeup, nails, appearance, breaks, and leisure- didn't anymore.

I scrubbed the floor. That didn't matter to me either. It was the first job I'd gotten at the Spa. After a few weeks of cleaning up the kitchen, halls, pools and villas; Circe put you in loading and unloading the enchanted ships that brought supplies to the island without a captain, sorting and cleaning fruit for smoothies, sorting protein packs and boosts into baskets. Then everyone branched out. Manicurist, masseuse, hairdresser, gardener, animal carer, stylist, cook, or waitress… Circe had kept me in pool cleaning for a long time, and manually cleaning the halls for even longer- I'd sworn I'd never do it again. Maybe she was trying to kill the small part in me that was a fighter. That small part that I'd suspected had always been there but was now eating away at the old me.

The trail of bubbles was slippery under my knees and hands. The frustrating thing would be that right after I was done, a pirate would come and walk all over it. I didn't know how it was possible to have dirty shoes when dirt and earth had gotten miles away, but they just soiled it all over. And the ship was _big. _Hylla and I were doomed to spend the whole day here.

A drunken pirate was scrambling around the deck, his friends laughing like idiots and pushing him around laughing. It was the first time I was on deck without being a show for everyone to watch: the first time I got to see what they _really _did. A few, like I expected, were leisurely horsing around and telling each other stories. A group was playing cards; a pirate was off on his own, carving. Others were sewing up the sails, and a group had just gone down to inspect the hull.

I shook my head thinking about how stupid the drunk was, and Hylla looked up from her own work. She saw the pirate and her eyes blew up to the size of coins. She cringed away when he walked closer and I bit my lips. He must be the one who…

I scrubbed the floor some more, promising myself that I'd comfort my sister later, and promising myself that I'd gut him once I could use a sword perfectly.

The drunken pirate stumbled towards us and in a confusing moment, he walked towards the area I'd just cleaned and his shoes slid across the wood and with a loud THUMP he fell on his back, flipping over my pail of water and landing on my foot. I screamed as my ankle's angle got irregular and I scrambled away.

The pirates stopped whatever and looked at the fallen pirate and me.

"Tripped him, did you?" Blackbeard said.

"No," I said. "He was drunk and the floor was slippery. Your fault if anyone's since you're making us clean it."

_Screw you Reyna, _I thought to myself.

"My fault, eh? I'll give you something that's my fault."

For the third time, I was dragged up to the mast and tied to it, my back outwards.

I felt the Cat. And again. And again. Somehow I didn't flinch horribly like before, my vision didn't blur up. Was the provost going easy on me?

_The day pigs fly._

The last blow was hard and it knocked the breath out of me. My back stung- but that was it. Stinging. Not horrible burning like I was a martyr in the fifteenth century.

"Captain, she's becoming stronger." The provost said.

"She's a wretched daughter of Bellona, they do that." Blackbeard replied. I heard walking towards me and the ropes got sliced clean through, but the tip of the knife got caught on my arm and I had to bite my lips.

Someone grabbed me by a handful of hair and threw me to the ground. I hit the ground as hard as the drunk.

"Go," the provost said. "Back to cleaning or we'll find some other way to torture you."

I got back on all four and reached my rag. The bucket was gone. I looked around for it until somebody handed it to me. I saw that it was Andrew. I grabbed it from him, making sure to splash him with some of it, and got back to work.

The sun peaked at noon, and the pirates went downstairs when the cook started bellowing. Two of them were left upstairs to watch Hylla and me in case we decided to jump overboard or knock someone out with the bucket. They seemed to be paying more attention to the blocks of wood they were sculpting.

I pretended to clean until I was next to Hylla.

"You okay?" She asked me.

"I'm fine. My shirt's just a bit more shredded in the back."

"Your windbreaker's still downstairs," Hylla said.

"That's shredded too," I said. "And you? Was the drunk one the one who..?"

"I told you Reyna, I'm not talking to you about it." Hylla said sharply, shooting me the death glare.

"It was just a question," I hissed back. I shouldn't hiss at her. It was hell that she'd gotten dragged through, and making her talk about it was a bit cruel. She looked up at me and took a bit of her hair.

"Your hair's a mess," she said, rubbing her fingers along the split end. Soap had dried up over it, and there were bits of straw stuck there.

"It gets in the way. If it wouldn't be suspicious I'd cut it off." I told her.

"Here," Hylla said. "Straighten up."

She knelt behind me and packed my hair behind my back. I didn't know what she was doing exactly, but I felt it stay in place once Hylla moved away.

"There," she said from behind. "Tied in place with a strand of your hair- one useful thing we got from that island. Just try not to touch it too much because it's not very-"

"Wenches," a pirate called. "Get back to work."

Hylla and I got scrubbing again.

The sun traced an arc across the sky, towards the west. The deck was huge to clean, especially with the pirates just stepping and dirtying it and pointing out that we'd 'missed a spot'. But I'd learned about parts of the ship. The poop deck was at the back, once you climbed a few stairs that went around the trap door the pirates always brought us out from. The forecastle was at front, after climbing another set of stairs, at the same end as the bowsprit- a long piece of wood like the tip of some giant toothpick sticking out from the front. Probably to pierce through enemy ships, maybe it made the ship more aerodynamic… I wasn't sure if that even made sense. The main deck, where we were right now and had spent most of the day was called exactly that, the main deck.

I froze and watched it. It looked like it touched the waves; kissing another version of itself, its reflexion, before going back down. The reflexion was blurry and the light cast off it seemed to project for miles and miles. I'd never seen that before. Well, maybe I had, but I'd never appreciated. It seemed a shame that something that beautiful was at such an isolated place, in the middle of the ocean, where so few people saw it.

It must be a rare honour for prisoners, but we were barely thrilled when we spent the evening on the deck. Hylla and I were sitting tight near the railing, or ankles tied together so we couldn't move without pirate assistance. We were handed metal plates with some kind of white fish on it, and a roll of bread.

"Don't worry, lass," the cook said. "Caught fresh today. My father blessed me, ya know."

I wondered if he referred to the fish or the ocean in general. Then I wondered if he was literal or not.

"Who's the god of the ocean? Or goddess?" I asked Hylla.

"I don't know," she said. "We'll have to figure this out once we get on the main land."

We ate with our hands, picking the bones out of our mouths if we hadn't spotted them in our plates. The cook was right, it _was _delicious, although I was so starved, I wasn't sure if anything could taste bad. But this was really delicious, the kind of thing you'd get in a restaurant under the 'Our Classics' section of the menu.

I was eager to go back down and have Hylla check my back injury to see how bad it was, and then wait it out until midnight and swordfight, but that wasn't it. We sat there, in the dark- so maybe they'd forgotten us. A few of Circe's Tiki torches had been snatched and they burnt through the deck, lighting up the deck.

For those wondering what pirates do in the evening: a lot. It felt like some kind of twisted girl scout camp with unshaven adult men. There was what can be best described as a sing-along, with a fiddle, some kind of small flute and the voices of people who couldn't sing, knew it, but did it anyways: foul songs about mermaids, beer, women, tragedies at sea and on land, a bunch of folk songs in old English…

One guy barked something out and they all set up like some kind of court. One of the skinny and weak looking pirates grabbed another's arm, Andrew grabbed the other, and after a few seconds of watching confused, I realised that they were holding a mock trial of what would happen if the pirate got caught. A hangman was standing nearby with a length of rope, and I watched his hands tied it into a loop you could hang a man with. What were those called…? A noose?

"You are charged with the attack of the _Sea Queen _ship and assassination of the whole crew and theft of equipment." The mock-judge,

"'Aye, mate." The prisoner said. The others burst out laughing.

"Order in the court," the judge yelled out. "And the murder of Royal Navy captain Jack Hashbrow."

"He deserved it, mate." The prisoner said. The others laughed again. "He had the kind of face you just had to hit. 'Bit like you, Your Honour."

The pirates laughed and I laughed a bit too. I turned to look at Hylla who was grinning.

"I sentence you to beheading." The judge said.

"Say goodbye to my wife for me, she'll deny it but she's mine." He said. Everyone laughed again and they even pretended to behead him.

"Think that's the funniest trial any of us would get," A man said. I wondered if they knew that the jury system had changed. That you couldn't get beheaded anymore, that there were lawyers and victim privacy and so forth. Probably not considering they were sailing the seven seas on this ship, thinking they were the scourge of it, and planning to sell me and Hylla as slaves.

There was some talk about what they'd do when they'd get back on solid land, and drinking of something called a 'bomboo' (I assumed it was alcohol) that made the drunk from earlier throw up on sight.

"You're disgusting, mate." One pirate said, clapping his back.

"One of you," a pirate yelled at Hylla and I. "Clean this up."

One look at Hylla and then at the drunk made me raise my hand. Andrew untied my ankles and when he looked back up he looked for a second too long. I felt like spitting in his face. I was actually building up a stock of saliva in my mouth when he handed me the bucket to go clean it up. Yes, it was disgusting.

Drinking around a tiki torch as if it were a camp fire of some kind, they were quiet. Maybe when we'd thought they were all sleeping, that's what the pirates had been doing. Just looking up at the dark ocean, listening to the gentle sound of the waves, enjoying the back-and-forth rock of the waves that even _I'd _come to appreciate…

Then I looked above my head and my jaw drop. No, if they'd been awake, _that _ was what they'd been looking at. The stars. Thousands of them, more than I'd seen from even Circe's islands. They were incredibly beautiful.

"Big Dipper's out tonight," the guy standing at the wheel said. I looked up and watched one pirate point it out to Andrew. I followed the direction his finger was pointing at and saw it.

"You'll always find East with it, son." He said. "Always."

"East is home," Andrew said. "England, right?"

"Your home's here," Blackbeard said. His voice was rough like it hadn't been used in a while. "You old home is East."

_Mine is West, _I thought. But not Circe's Island around Bermuda. San Diego; where Hylla and I had a life with our father before he died. Or was that not home anymore? Where would home be, once Hylla and I got off this ship? Would we even have a home? Maybe that place with the Fields of Mars and the fort. Maybe, just maybe, I thought.

* * *

><p>I ducked Hylla's sword and raised my hand fast, hitting the blade exactly where I'd discovered at least <em>my <em> skin wouldn't cut, and punching it out of her hand.

"Good," she said. I shook my knuckles. They bled a little and I just sucked the blood off my hand.

"Styx, if they see this, they'll wonder on what we cut ourselves. We don't even get _forks _with the meal." I said. _When we get a meal…_

It'd been three days since we'd spent our evening on the main deck. Turned out, they _had _forgotten us. Since then, we'd been sent cleaning other parts of the ship and doing dishes at every meal. From what I could tell they'd found a secret stock of some sort, and the cook seemed to be getting more fish. But they'd decided that we weren't worth the food anymore.

I also guessed that rations were coming low- we hadn't docked anywhere or attacked a ship or any of that. They'd cut off our food first, then theirs. That gave us another reason why we had to get our fighting skills sharp quick. Knowing how to fight would be nothing if we couldn't be strong enough to stand up and swing a blade.

"When's the last time they really took a look at us?" Hylla said. "For all they know I'm a horribly abusive sister who beats you every night."

"As if I'd let you," I smirked, tossing her the sword. I'd discovered that I liked the dagger better than the sword. I could use both fine, but the dagger was a smaller weapon and it wore me out less quickly than the other. I had a feeling endurance was going to be key if we ever _did _fight.

"They don't know that," Hylla said. "_I _didn't even know that."

"I didn't know you could swing a sword either." I said. "Good thing I never tried you." Hylla made a face and got in a striking position, I got into a defensive position and she took the first strike.

Then we heard shifting above us and something clicked in my mind.

We must've been on the ship for two months without hitting land. There could only be so much alcohol on one ship. This meant that pirates could only be horribly hung over for so many…

"Hide it!" Hylla said.

It was in a hurry that we buried the weapons and slumped in front of them, for cover. I closed my eyes and tried to slow my breathing… My heart was beating like a drum and ignoring my conscience because of the work-out, the adrenaline, and the worry. The key turned into the door and the door opened. The pirate the was holding a candle. There was the sound of a blow after a few seconds.

"Bilge rat!" The pirate said. "There's not a sound in the ship, you were the only one awake. And thanks to you, so am I."

"I heard something!" It took all my self-control not to just grab the dagger and fly out at stupid little weasel Andrew. Couldn't he just jump into the ocean?

I squinted to look at Hylla. She was doing the same and I knew that we were thinking the same thing. The door was unlocked, there were only two of them, it was night, we had weapons… She shook her head just a bit- it could have been something done in her sleep. But no, it was a clear 'no'.

I saw Andrew kneel before the door shut to a close, and I waited for the steps going up the stairs to disappear before I sat up.

Hylla said it first, "He's onto us."

I nodded and spat out a cuss word I'd heard above deck. My hand flew to my mouth because there was one rule that I was not to break under Hylla's roof and that was _thou shall not swear. _Hylla raised an eyebrow.

"Reyna Madelyn Sabourin!" She said strictly, as if she was about to give me a good-thorough-talking-to and a time-out. On the island, that tone would've led to a heated argument, slammed doors, and silent treatments- maybe because she figured that if she couldn't raise me from scratch from the age of six plus since she wasn't around and was too busy working, she'd at least keep one thing about me socially acceptable. And then she started laughing.

"My gods, you've grown up." Hylla said, pushing hair behind my ear.

"Stop that," I said swatting her hand. "You're getting all mushy."

"What? It's like your movies." I rolled my eyes.

"That was actual romance though. And comedies. And I don't really see the appeal anymore."

Hylla raised an eyebrow. "You don't? But you loved those things."

"Yeah and… Now I don't." I said. "It seems better to me to just be the one with the sword and the power and the ability to change what's around than being weak and mushy and totally dependent on one guy who can turn around and leave anytime."

Look where dependence had gotten us.

"We're not there yet, Rey." She told me.

"Well, one day we will." I sustained. Hylla smiled at me.

"Yeah, one day we will."

_ Even if practise is going to become so much harder with dweeb after us…_


	7. The Story

**I'm sorry for the wait, but I've been sick for the last... Week or two. I'm not doing well, it's hard to explain but a doctor's gonna check it out soon so it's all good. Anyways, here's your chapter!**

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><p>7<p>

The Story

_Confidence is like a dragon where, for every head cut off, two more heads grow back. _

–_Criss Jani_

I woke up the morning after Andrew's rude interruption of our fighting and blinked a few times, and saw a crumpled black shape on the ground near the door. I peaked at Hylla, still sleeping, and walked over to it. Turning it over in my hands, I frowned. My windbreaker, what was it doing over there? I hadn't fallen asleep with it. I'd taken it off before being shipped off to scrub the deck, and I couldn't remember if it'd been there when I went to bed. I looked over it and saw that it was somewhat mended in the back. Thick thread like the ones the pirates used to fix the sails when they tore held the scraps together. It cut a bit of length, but that meant nothing to me, this was the best item of clothing I had. But I wondered who in the world would mend it.

That's when I remembered Andrew coming in. I'd watched him put something down by the door. Had he..?

"Morning Sunshine," Hylla said behind me. I snapped out of my thoughts and spun around. "Any sign of life from the idiots above?"

"No," I said. "Maybe a shark jumped onboard, or a crocodile that was after Blackbeard's hands."

"My, you're hilarious," Hylla said. "Come here, I want to check your back."

And I kind of forgot about the windbreaker.

My stomach growled but I ignored it- I was used to it anyways (being hungry _and_ ignoring my body requesting the fulfillment of natural needs I couldn't fulfill). It actually made me fight harder. It was like a token of 'hey, remember why you're fighting? Yeah, work on that'.

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><p>For practise, we'd gone silent. No weapons, we didn't jump around- it was mimic, basically, and things like push-ups, sit ups, squats, trying to touch our toes- those things that people did in gym class but that were basically new it us. Mimic fighting was rare, and it was harder when you didn't have the weapon weighing down your arm to judge how tiring it was, or when you had to think about the fighting and the staying quiet at once and weren't particularly great at either one. But we couldn't trust the so-called safety of midnight anymore. For all we knew Andrew had his ear to the door on the other side every single second. Even our prison wasn't private anymore.<p>

"Hylla, when are we going to do anything?" I asked.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, it's getting boring. I'm sorry, but we've practised. Over and over. And now they're choking us in various ways- cutting our food, making us do their dishes and pass the mop on the deck, and we're not doing anything about that. Isn't that what learning to fight was about?"

"It's not the right time." Hylla said.

"We could've lashed out at them at night."

"That would have been stupid and you know it." Hylla said, "You're just being eager."

"Still. Next time, can we just… Take the chance?"

"It's not about just lashing out at anyone and anything that moves, Rey."

"I'm not saying that, but it's time for something!"

"We'll figure it out when it's time."

"Before we die of hunger, or after?" I asked.

"Stop being sarcastic." Hylla said. "At least keep some of the manners Circe taught you."

"I don't want to be what Circe told me to be, Hylla. The girl who used to look down on everyone, watch romance movie eating dark chocolate because the other had too much calories and who died her hair auburn or whatever it was… I mean, I was doing _that _while some people were suffering through stuff like this and even worst, or considering it a life style? People go through this every day in some places."

"Rey, we'll have that back when we get back to the mainland."

"That's the thing, Hy. Well… Frankly it disgusts me now, Circe's island. I don't want it back! I want to slap Andrew, break out of here, and start over. Start _well._"

Hylla looked at me like I'd announced I was planning on immigrating to Hungary.

"What do you mean you don't 'want it back'?"

"Well… I don't want it back!" I said. Words? Not my strong suit. That was the number one reason they didn't let me interact with the clients much at the spa before.

"You don't want it back." Hylla repeated. Her jaw was shut as tight as a vault. "Why? Why not?"

"I'm a bit ashamed of it," I admitted.

Hylla exploded.

"Ashamed? _Ashamed? _What have _I_ done to make you ashamed?" She said.

"You?"

"Yes me! I worked my freaking butt off for that job! I looked for days after Dad died to find someone to help us- but there was nobody there until I turned to the mythical community. Wouldn't it have been easier for a 12 year old to let herself get dragged into the system with her sister? For the record; there was one foster home available Reyna, one home. They were going to send me to a freaking orphanage run by nuns and keep the cute face most likely to get adopted in the system. In case you wouldn't have noticed, when _you_ turned around for help there was always someone. There was _me. _And I've been working ever since, Reyna, ever since so we could live on the island, get what we needed, and live _well_. And I worked even harder to convince Circe to let you live with me instead of her putting you at a school on the mainland with the other girls, and now you're ashamed to live with me?"

I was so shocked I didn't answer for a bit. That's how she'd interpreted it? Whoa- no, no, no, no, no! That was _not_ what I meant!

"Hylla…"

She'd turned her back on me and she wasn't listening anymore.

"Hylla…" That's when I saw she was blinking back tears. "Hylla?"

She passed her hand over her eyes.

"I'm sorry Rey, it's just… Would it be that hard for someone to give us a break once? I know I'm not good enough at everything I've tried-"

"Don't say that!"

"-But would it honestly be that hard?"

"Hylla!" I gave her a hug. Over the weeks, I'd started appreciating my sister even more. She wasn't just chaperone and food with the occasional happy memory anymore. She was really, really what a sister should be like. She was my best friend. And now I was realising that Hylla wasn't just my best friend, but she was the only reason I was here. Not _here _as in 'in a pirate ship', although that might be true, but 'here' as in... As in… It was hard to explain, and I'm no good at explaining. But if I've ever loved my sister more than anything else, it was now.

"That's not what I meant. I meant I didn't want to be a snob. I didn't want to be the kind of person who just focused on the superficial stuff, and freaked out about stuff not worth freaking out for and didn't realise that they had everything they needed and an awesome sister." I said.

I sat down next to her, cross legged. "I would never, _ever _be ashamed of you. Especially when you're with a sword," I added to make her smile.

"But… You never told me that. That we nearly got separated. Actually, you never told me anything about how we got to Circe's Island." I said. Now the idea terrified me. Without Hylla? What would I _do _without Hylla? How the heck was I supposed to stand up and fight if I didn't have anybody for fight for and with?

"Which would make now about time, wouldn't it?" Hylla said. She took a deep breath and leaned against the wall.

"Dad used to be in the US infantry. Then I was born, and he retired at the first chance he got because he wanted to be there for me, although he wasn't sure how long Mother would stick around and take care of me, and then us, either. She did for a while, it was a bit after you were born that she left to go back to Olympus. Dad said that she could smell war and battle like a bloodhound, and she was going back to Olympus to center it. But anyways, when Mother left we moved to California and became a cop in San Diego. He said that California was a better place for us."

"Did you ask why?" I asked.

"No, I didn't." Hylla said. "I just assumed education or something mortal like that. I think he knew a lot more about the demigod world than I gave him credit for, at the time.

You were about five years old when he got shot, although you knew that part too. They plucked us into an overcrowded foster home that was an 'impermanent arrangement' according to the social worker. Gods, you're lucky you can't remember her. Squeaky voice, always wanted to talk about feelings and draw things out in crayon as explanations, as if we were four years old." Hylla rolled her eyes and I smiled a bit.

"Anyways, I could never sleep because the girl in my room was insomniac since she'd watched her mother kill her father, and she kept shifting and turning on the bunk over mine and putting the music on her iPod to twice the maximum. It'd been a month of that and I was sick of not sleeping, so I decided to head downstairs to try and get some sleep on the couch. It was later than I thought it was so Jeanne –our foster mother, she wasn't as bad as the social worker since she'd seen too many kids to still screw up her job, but she was always too busy to pay attention to anybody for longer than ten seconds- was on the phone. I heard her say that she and Hank –that was her husband, barely saw him, might've been having an affair- had too many kids under their roof.

I listened out and figured that they'd found two empty spots; one in a girl's home, and one in a convent. They talked about adoption too, and I freaked. I completely freaked and I nearly ran in and stole the phone and smashed it against the wall. My gods, I didn't want us to be in two different places, much less sent off and adopted to two different homes. I knew we were demigods, and although I didn't know if there was a place to go where they'd train us and give us weapons and homes, I knew that it'd get tougher and that not just any idiot could take care of a demigod child. Especially not _my _demigod-child sister.

I joined my roommate in insomnia and it bothered me for the whole week. I was so scared that one day I'd get home and our things would be packed and the social worker would be there with a nun for me and an adoptive family for you, all proud of herself and saying 'see Hylla, I took good care of you and your sister' like whenever some arrangement changed or happened or I got grilled for a progress report. It was driving me insane, and one day I just couldn't take it and I made a last minute decision last period of the day. I stole my teacher's wallet."

"You _what?" _I asked shell-shocked that Hylla, who told me that stealing was one of the seven deadliest sins, had stolen a whole freaking wallet.

"I stole my teacher's wallet. It was just on his desk and nobody was looking because Bradley Hatcher had broken some lab equipment and I had this insane plan in which I needed money. It had a couple of twenties and a credit card in it, as well as a driver's licence. Anyways, I went online that night and bought plane tickets for some place far away. I knew that Dad had grown up in Florida, and I knew he had a sister in a small town there. So I bought two plane tickets to the closest cities for the next night."

"You're kidding."

"I am _so _not kidding, it was the rashest thing I ever did and I thought I'd throw up over our plane tickets. I put in a fake email address with 'puppy lover' spelt in German, so I imagine that someone in Europe got the confirmation for our plane tickets. I just printed them out right there and then."

The thought of somebody in Germany sitting at their desk, procrastinating off their German assignment or math exercises and then getting Hylla's email and thinking however you said 'what the heck?' in German made me smile.

"And I stuffed some of your clothes in your school bag while I was helping you get ready in the morning, and told you it was a secret. I went to the library instead of eating at the cafeteria and worked on forging the final copy of the letter authorising two minors to fly alone by copying the signature on the driver's licence. And yes, the stolen wallet made big news but I wasn't enough of an idiot to show it or admit I stole it.

Anyways, I walked home from school, ditched my school stuff and packed. I took all of our various ID from the drawer in which Jeanne kept it in. We had passports- Dad always had them, just in case. I think he suspected that demigod business could strike at any moment. My school ended an hour before yours did since you were still at elementary. Instead of picking you up from school and walking you home as per usual, I'd figured out the bus route, bought bus tickets and brought us to the airport. I didn't calm down until we were on our plane and off to Florida. Then I got us to where Dad's sister lived but she freaked out at us. She called Dad a few things I won't repeat and called us a few things I won't repeat either. Needless to say, it was a dud and she slammed the door at my face.

I was too scared that she'd call child services or the cops or something, so I got us on another plane- thank gods my teacher hadn't cancelled his credit cards yet. Anyways, I got us to this tiny island in the Bahamas where I had no idea what we'd do next, and I was too afraid of using the credit card again in case they traced it to us and then found out where we were.

We were at this beach and someone started shouting out that there were dolphins. I told you not to go watch, but you were stubborn as a child and you ran off in the crowd to try and get close enough to see the dolphins. I panicked and looked for you, and I think you panicked too because a woman brought you back to me and you looked so very close to crying. She asked me where our parents were and I told her that I didn't know. She told me that was bull, and I finally admitted that Dad was dead, Mother was long gone, and we weren't supposed to be anywhere near the Bahamas. She looked at me and then told me she knew what we should do, and events followed and we ended up at Circe's island."

I was quiet for a second.

"I know, it wasn't the best plan, but I was twelve, panicked and clueless. I guess it worked out in a way."

"We're still alive and we're both together," I said. "That's got to count for something."

"Maybe I should've let you stay safe in a foster home. You'd have gone to school and made friends your age and gotten a decent education past reading/writing/basic math/important women in history."

"No you shouldn't have and don't you ever think there's anything I need more than you!" I said. I realised my voice had gotten louder. "Because there isn't." I said my voice back to normal.

Hylla cocked her head back so it leaned on the wall and she whipped her eyes with her hand.

"Sorry Rey. It's just… A lot to deal with," Hylla said. I started noticing the pockets under her eyes, the frown lines between her eyebrows… Yeah; the worry was getting to her. Half of those 'if', 'buts' and 'unless'' were about me. "And then you're out there saying that it doesn't matter… But it does Reyna, you're going to have scars on your back and getting out of here is going to be superhuman hard."

"But we're not all human," I said. "We're more than human."

"That doesn't change the fact that you're twelve and I'm your sister and I was supposed to take care of you." She said softly, as if to herself. Her eyes were haunted and I immediately got this sinking feeling in my stomach. Not all the ghosts in my sister's eyes were caused by me. Some of them were given to her by the pirates and what the pirates had done to me. But I remembered some of the things I'd yelled at her when we'd first been locked in Blackbeard's vessel, about how it was her fault and she'd lied and she shouldn't have brought us to Circe's.

Hylla's bringing us on the island hadn't been the best thing on earth, but it'd been the best thing for us. We hadn't learned the best virtues, but we were here now. And in the scheme of things, now was all that mattered really.

"You did take care of me. But we're superhuman, like you said, so maybe that that means that you can't take care of me the same way. Maybe… Maybe I've _got _to get yelled out and scarred to get things. I've learnt more in the past month than I have ever before, than when I was bubble-wrapped and put in a rubber room where I couldn't hurt myself. And important stuff, about survival and life and all that. So don't you dare think that you did a lousy job with me."

I got up to my feet and pulling her up. I could pull her up with one hand- which was an exciting muscle development that I liked. I was going to make sure the pirates didn't like them though.

Hylla smiled. "Okay," she said. "Grab that sword and give me the knife, it's my turn."

"Is not," I said.

"Is too."

"Is not."

"Is too. Gods, to think we used to have the same argument about _the bathroom in the morning…" _She said, shaking her head.

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><p><strong>Anons:<strong>

**Beautifully Psychopath- 1) Name = WIN 2) PFF! 3) Guess not...**

**Vsl67- Thanks for making me remember to update and give time and effort to this story, it's much appreciated! **


	8. Rats and Doomsday

**I find it nearly cruel how long ago I last posted.**

**Either way: you'll notice that I stopped posting around April. I've been having some issues with my health since April. I'm fine and dandy, but I've been having trouble writing (like, physically) and have only been able to update a few stories. I kind-of apologise for that, but I think it sucked more for me than for you guys.**

**Also I realised what a ship was actually built like, so I now have to rewrite the big-big-big battle scene. I'll get a move-on faster since it's summer, so don't worry too much. **

**Disclaimer: Me no own**

**Dedication: _My _wrestling buddy :)**

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><p>8<p>

Rats and Doomsday

_"Relax. They're not going to kill us. They're going to TRY and kill us. And that is a very different thing." _  
><em>― Steve Voake, The Dreamwalker's Child<em>

I'd heard once that when someone didn't eat, their stomachs shrunk. I'd been told that that was what'd happened in World War II to the people who were so brutally locked up inside concentration camps.

I was pretty sure mine was at least starting to shrink if not already the size of a pocket or something ridiculous like that.

Hylla was the same. We were hungry and thirsty and my stomach hurt so much. It was weird how much I learnt on this ship. Hunger wasn't that time between lunch and supper where you weren't allowed to eat any food because the next meal was coming up. Hunger was this; no food for days on end and no clear next date in sight.

We were both starving and in a veggie state like never before. Sitting against our own walls, not talking, not thinking of what to do or how to escape, none of it. Just trying to talk ourselves into the fact that we weren't so miserable and not so hungry and that we _could_ hold on.

The thing about 'holding on' is that it's never about if you _can _hold on, it's about if you _have _to hold on.

I'd counted the days. It'd been at least a week since we'd gotten the last meal. At least the water kept coming because if not, then we'd be screwed. Prisoners of war were treated better than we were.

That's when I heard the squeaking. It caught my ear as if I were some kind of predator in a forest and I sat up.

"What's going on, Rey?" Hylla asked.

"I… Listen…"

I heard it again and looked around the cabin. I saw in the corner closest to the door.

A rat.

My mind started. I remembered in the classes on nutrition Circe gave us. Protein meant strength, and strength was what we needed right now. Protein was found in eggs and nuts and meat. Meat was the flesh of animals. Rats were an animal. As disgusting as it I was sure it sounded to people who'd eaten lunch ten minutes ago, to me it sounded _like_ lunch.

"Hylla," I said.

"Yeah, I know." She said eyeing the tiny animal. It might carry any of twenty million diseases.

"Pass me something," I said, slowly edging closer, as if approaching a wild animal. She seemed to understood, gods knew how- maybe she was just as hungry as I was, and she reached under the straw matt we'd made ourselves to pull out one of the knives. She handed me one and I weighed it in my hand, trying not to move. The blade was even balance

I wrapped my hand around the handle; index, middle and ring finger on the center of the handle and my thumb on the opposite side of the handle, my little finger hanging around. I was about five steps away from the rat. I took a step back, turned forty-five degrees to the right since I was right-handed, and threw the knife like I would throw a baseball if I ever needed to, taking a step forwards and releasing the blade from my hand. It made a full rotation in the air before nailing the rat.

I breathed out, not realising I'd been holding a breath.

Hylla gave me a smile, and got up as well.

"Dirty, raw meat is always better when you catch it yourself, eh?" She asked, putting an arm around me.

So yes, we did eat it. I won't tell you exactly how _that _happened, but we kept it down.

We threw the bones and skin under the straw, and I was sure it would smell disgusting in a few days, but I was too focused on filling my stomach to care. It didn't taste that great, but to me it could've been the food of the gods. Of course, I wasn't full and neither was Hylla but if baby steps were what it took, baby steps would be what we took.

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><p>Three weeks and very few meals later, doomsday happened. Not for us- although at first it sure looked like that was the case.<p>

Hylla and I were playing rock-paper-scissors-bomb-light saber-squid-marshmallow gun-M16-paintball-poison dagger, which is a game that I hope to the gods you are never bored enough to discover.

A little report on the activity of pirates (as far as we knew); they were getting upset. Their maps were out-dated, their resources scarce, and they were completely lost. They had no idea when they were going to dock, and talk about walking off once they got to wherever they were planning on selling us as slaves was common.

Anyways, they were divided, grumpy pirates and I'd learnt seven more swear words that Hylla had forbidden me from ever repeating.

In other exciting news: Andrew hadn't been the one to give us our meals in a while, which meant he might be dead.

I didn't like the idea of Blackbeard making any more victims. I didn't like the idea of people being killed for relatively no reasons. I didn't like the idea of killing at all usually (which sounded real authentic from the one who spent her nights swinging swords). But this kid was… soaggravating. I'd tell him to take a picture, but I wasn't sure if he knew what that was.

Doomsday was basically any other morning and the pirates were getting too loud for us to be able to catch up on our sleep. We both jumped high when we heard gunshots.

"Was that a..?"

"Yeah," I told Hylla. "Flintlock pistol, I bet."

"How do you know what a Flintlock pistol is?" She asked. I looked up at the sky.

"Thanks Mom." We both said at once. And we weren't even sarcastic. If we'd have been daughters of, like, Venus or Ceres or something, we'd have been toast. Blackbeard wouldn't even have kept us- he'd have thrown us away like he'd done to Hope and-

_Moving on, thinking of other things… _

"But if they've got the guns out, it can't be good." Hylla said. I heard the sound of something splash into the water and we met eyes.

"If that was a body falling…" I said.

"We'll be okay." Hylla said firmly.

Then we heard creaking steps down the stairs and paused at our door. The sound of jiggling keys sent Hylla and I to the far wall, as we had been trained to do, and the door opened to our two usual caretakers.

"You, short lass, here." He said clearly talking to me even if I was only a few inches shorter than him.

"Why?" I blurted out. Hylla shot me a look.

"Captain thinks it's time to do a-cleaning of this dump," he said gesturing to our room.

It wasn't our fault we had to –don't take this the immature way- live and do everything in this one little room. The straw was also dirty from all the times we'd sweated and occasionally bled on it, Hylla had thrown up once in a corner we tried to avoid after the pirates had separated us for a scary hour, in which I assumed the worst happened. Hylla never said.

But the idea of even some clean didn't work with us, Hylla and I crossed glances.

If they moved the straw they'd find our weapons.

"No," Hylla said. "We're okay."

"What are we, maids? This isn't a choice. Get over here, lassie." The taller one said.

"No!" I said.

"Look, Captain took out a gun." So that splash was a body. This day wasn't promising. "Shot the first guy who said no. And I rather not be next on account of you two, and I bet my booty you feel the same. So drag your filthy behinds here." He said.

Hylla and I looked at each other. We hadn't expected this to come. I felt myself panic a little.

But then again; hadn't we said that we'd know show time when it came?

I got up shakily and immediately collapsed. "Owe!" I said. "It's my ankle. I sprained it some time ago when I tried to walk. The ship moved too much and I fell."

I hoped that made sense to him.

He sighed like this situation was all my fault, like I should have gotten used to the rocking of a ship just in case this day might've come.

"I don't see why Captain wants to keep you," he said. "Both of you are useless and you just waste food and space and time and energy."

I_f you think I want to be here with you, and if you think I get _any _of your 'resources'…_

He came forwards to pick me up. I waited until he was just a foot away and then jumped to my feet and sent a punch.

See, to knock someone out, you need to make sure their head moves a lot. And the best place to hit is the temples, even if it's a bigger area than your fist.

And there are different ways for your hand to be folded up, but what I do is a fist with the middle finger raised up a little. It's called a Phoenix fist. It's a way that helps focus the force on the pressure point. Don't ask me how I know all this, but some mornings I woke up knowing how to fight and punch, and Hylla and I had reasoned and talked through it.

Also, when someone thinks they're going to get punched, they tense up, and their neck muscles hold their ground and the head doesn't move so much. So you've got to make sure the element of surprise is on your side.

I think I had that one covered. Or maybe Bellona was watching and helping her daughters out.

Either way, the guy was limp on the floor.

Hylla hadn't wasted time. The other guy at the door had been in his own little bubble as well, so she'd been sliding along the wall towards the door without him noticing it. When she'd seen the signs that I was bouncing up, she did the same, except she got the guy in her personal favourite wrestling move.

_Wrist control_- she grabbed the guys' wrist and held on for the ride.

_Duck under_- she ducked under his arm, pushing the elbow up with her own.

_Whip_- she dropped her weight and twisted her body towards the ground, whipping the guy to the ground and twisting so she was on his back- not caring that his head hit the ground pretty rough.

I delivered a kick in the temples which knocked him out too. Or it could've killed them, I wasn't sure. Or particularly interested because the idea kind-of scared me.

We both sort of froze and looked at that. Two grown men, armed and knocked out on the floor at our feet.

I hope you ever feel that rewarded.


	9. Blood on Blades

**Hello! Sorry I'm slightly late I was in the wilderness up until, like, four hours ago...**

**Also a fanfictioner (yes. My word.) called Kitty Qin wrote a 'Reading the Scourge of the Seven Seas' fanfiction. First chapter is really good and I'm waiting for more. Link here, folks: s/8307075/1/Reading_The_Scourge_of_the_Seven_Seas**

**Enjoy!**

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><p>9<p>

Blood on Blades

**"No one can tell what goes on in between the person you were and the person you become. No one can chart that blue and lonely section of hell. There are no maps of the change. You just come out the other side.  
>Or you don't."<br>― Stephen King, _The Stand_**

Hylla pulled the sword from the pile of hay where it was hidden. The leaf blade shape caught the sunlight.

"You take it," I said. "You're better with it."

"Shame, I like H2H combat better." Hylla said. Hand to hand combat that way; so wrestling guys down to the ground, kicking, punching, grappling, and so forth. She was stronger than I was, with long limbs which made her quite good at stabilising the people she pinned and keeping them that way.

"I don't think they'll ask which way you'd like to fight before charging," I said. Hylla tied another two knives at her side- I did the same. These were bronze- for some reason the dagger I used (and that I called _my _dagger in my head) was the only gold weapon. It seemed odd…

My hand brushed a bump in my leg. Something in my right pocket- long and narrow… The dog whistle- right. I'd stolen it from the pirates whom we'd robbed the weapons from in the first place. If I had to roll it'd hurt, but I didn't have the heart to throw it out. Maybe it was a gut feeling. Or pure superstition- nothing _that _bad had happened to me when I'd had it, and it wouldn't start now.

Superstition was stupid, but so was this plan. They went together, really.

Hylla and I pulled the bodies to the sides of the room so nobody coming in would see them.

"Adcock- Bonnet- what's the racket?" Someone yelled over. I looked over at Hylla and she mouthed;_ Wait._

"Cap'ain! Cap'ain, Adcock and Bonnet aren't talking!" The same guy yelled with a horribly deep welsh accent that made him hard to understand.

"Well go down there and check, Bellamy you idiot!"

More steps, coming closer… I heard the door coming to the main hold (read: storage room) open and someone getting closer.

Hylla and I flattened ourselves on either sides of the door.

_Born to be strong. _My mother's voice echoed back to me. 

The scars on my back tingled. It wasn't pain, it was like a reminder. They'd given me those scars. That pain had made me who I was now. Every reason to hate them, every minute of fighting they'd let me see, every hand they'd lain on my sister. Every one of it gave me a reason to fight. Every reason to be strong had been something they'd given me. They'd made me want to hurt them. They'd strengthened me. They'd made me want to fight back.

And now they were going to wish they never had.

He took a step into the room and frowned when he saw us.

"Cap-"

Hylla's fist shot out like a cobra and he fell like a rag doll.

Another pirate was dragged to the side, but inside I swore. He had yelled. They had _had _to hear the yell. They just had to and… Gods of Olympus…

There were about 25 pirates on the ship. The Queen Anne's _A_venge, they'd baptised it. One of them had been thrown overboard minutes ago, 3 were here. That was still 21 pirates who would probably be very mad at us, on this ship, and armed. Especially _armed._

I heard footsteps of agitated people.

"I think I heard something."

"Yeah me too…"

"Enrique, go check." Someone barked.

"Rey," Hylla said in a whisper.

I looked down at my waist, where Hylla was slipping a gun in the hems of my work pants.

"Volley gun," she said. "There are seven barrels, but they all fire at once, and only once. You don't have any other ammo."

"I'll search these two for weapons," I said. I found a pistol and stuck it in my left pocket. Just in case I needed it while my right hand was busy (hint: right was my sword hand). I was planning on being a real force of destruction, or going down trying. I didn't know if I could do it against anyone other than Hylla, but I was becoming increasingly claustrophobic and I _wasn't_ going to live another day trapped down here.

"Oh hello," Hylla said. I turned and saw her holding up a key ring. She was holding one in particular.

"It's the only one made of the same metal as the doorknob," Hylla said. She looked through the others and I uncovered a ring hanging around his neck. For some reason I unclipped the chain and examined the ring. It looked like a tiny laurel wreath that you could put around your finger, the leaves both silver and gold.

I'd never really been into jewellery, even at Circe's island (I'd left that to Hope and everyone else), but for some reason I showed it to Hylla.

"Reyna, I don't think this is the time." She said.

I slipped it on my finger and Hylla dropped the sword she was holding and her eyes popped.

"How did you do that?"

"Put the ring on?"

"No- that… Rey, I may be hallucinating because gods know this isn't a five star resort, but you're invisible."

I took the ring off immediately.

"Now you're… Rey, that ring's magic." She said.

"That's going to be useful. Let's get out of here, _now."_

We snuck out from the small room in which we'd been locked in, and into the main hold. It was empty now, no more alcohol, no food, definitely no treasure. Empty crates, cannons with extra cannonballs that were too heavy to be of any use to us…

"This is where the others were," she said. She pointed to a wall where metal plaques were installed. "The ones that they killed, that they didn't keep as pets and cleaning ladies or slaves or whatever we're meant to be. The crew had them shackled to the wall, all in a row. They knew they wanted to keep us from the start. They knew; that's why they separated us from them."

Hylla and I held our breaths and hid behind those big crates. She mouthed something to me and I assumed that she had a plan and so I should let her be. Trusting my sister; that was something strangely new.

The pirate who must be Enrique appeared and frowned when he saw the door open.

"What the bloody hell-"

He ran closer to check it out and at that moment Hylla pounced out, grabbing him in a bear hug and covering his mouth.

"Rey," she said. I rushed to help her, teasing the sensitive skin of his throat with the blade of my knife.

"Look," she said. "I'm going to take your hand off my face. You're going to say something that explains why the three other idiots didn't come back, understand? And if you screw up- if you don't do that; guess what my little sister's going to do."

She let his imagination wander.

"And she's very angry right now."

"Incredibly," I said.

"Are we understood?" Hylla said in that sweet voice that could've been attractive to him if she weren't promising certain death. My sister was an action hero. Flirty and destructive, both at once. I was slightly repelled, slightly amazed, and slightly shocked. When had this happened? Well she always _had _scared me when she was really angry.

He nodded against her grip.

"Good." She removed her hand and he gasped. I dug my blade a little further to remind him.

"It's okay mates," he said. "The prisoners are sleeping, the three wastes of space here decided to stay and… Pull a joke on us. They're fine."

"Idiots," Someone replied.

"Sleeping, eh? Think Cap'ain would let us have a go at 'em?"

I wasn't quite sure what that meant, but Hylla paled, and I I caught on.

I nearly wanted to bust over there and bitch slap him, though. Then maybe I could have a go at him with my knife.

"Nah. Nah- I- I don't think that'd be a good idea." Enrique replied. Hylla let go of him and as he breathed in relief she stabbed him through the back.

It was the first time I'd seen blood on a blade, and I was sure that one way or another, even if we walked off this ship freely, it wouldn't be the last.

I had to admit, I had mixed feelings.

I knew that the appropriate, human response would be _oh that's so bad, my sister just killed someone right in front of me, she's a murderer _and so forth. But my eye caught to the metal and the way the blood dripped down it and that was all my brain could focus on. It was a kind of beautiful contrast that people didn't see often because they were usually too busy being terrified.

For a second I felt powerful. Because I could do that too. For another second I was scared. _Because_ I could do that too.

Then it was victorious. They had deserved it. The second you stopped treating people like people, you lost the right to be treated like a person. The second you condemned someone to being your slave and getting raped and being hurt and eating rats, you lost the right to be treated like a person, and all you deserved was to be treated like you had treated. If karma was a real thing, then it wasn't a bitch. It was what you'd made it become.

"Four down," Hylla said. I couldn't read her face.

Knowing the parts of the ship and having been brought out to wash dishes or scrub the deck more than once; I knew that we were in the storage hold in the back of the ship. Near the hull, the front, there was the forecastle which was the sailors' living quarters. The door was hanging open, which meant that there were still people inside. We could hear them. Someone had an accordion; someone was ranting about something that his European accent and slang made unrecognisable.

We paused and listened to the voices. I heard five different ones. There were two of us and five of them. They were stronger and better fed, but their morale was low while ours was just on fire and our adrenaline was making up for a lifetime of absence. We had the advantage of surprise against them, but part of me still wasn't sure if that was enough.

Hylla pulled me back. "Ideas?" She whispered.

"We'd have to storm it," I said. "And I'm not sure I like that idea. Gunshots would attract attention, so we can't use that. And even then, two against one? Can we handle that?"

"Not sure," she said. "We'd need a way to break them up into smaller groups."

"How?"

"I don't know. It might not be an option."

We sat down for a few more minutes and brainstormed through it. I looked down at my windbreaker and saw the heavy thread Andrew had mended it with.

Wait a sec- there had to be more of this onboard if he's spared some for me out of all things that thread could be used to. And if this was where they kept their supplies…

"I have something but it's insane," I said.

"Go," she told me. "Insane is good. I love insane, insane is fabulous."

We couldn't fight eighteen pirates (all but Andrew were grown men) with force. That would be like trying to survive a tsunami while wearing arm floaties and a float ring shaped like a duck. So we were going to have to use brains instead of brawns, which worried me. I wasn't stupid, but I'd never done it before.

We rummaged through the crates until we found what we were looking for; the thick thread that they used to fix their sails while at sea.

We waited on either side of the door, flattening ourselves as best as we could.

"Bah- I don't care what Enrique or the Cap'ain said. Imma go get the older one." One of the pirates said.

Hylla's jaw was shut about as tightly as it went. My blood chilled and I felt angry enough to punch the daylights out of an African elephant.

"Or the younger one for laughs," He said again. "What'd 'you lot think?"

I felt like every nerve inside me was on fire, objecting to the very thought. Hell. no.

Also, I was terrified.

The door creaked open and the pirate wandered in.

Hylla gave him a silent death, impaling her knives through the back of his head. I wasn't sure how she knew this, but she'd promised me that it'd pass through his brain.

I caught him and dragged him away so that the body didn't fall. He was sticky with sweat and insanely heavy, flopping down towards me.

I deposited him on the crates, happy to do so. His head rolled to the side. Blood dripped onto the wooden floor. I had this insane vision of a rat running straight under, with a stripe of red on his back.

I turned back, shaking my head, and Hylla tossed me the ball of thread. I held it, and pulled it tightly. I wrapped it around a nail sticking out from the wall and tied it in place with a knot I'd seen the sailors use.

For a while it was quiet. Hylla and I were patient. Like praying mantises, just standing there and waiting for the next strike. Some of nature's predators don't move to kill, when you think about it. The Venus flytrap can't move, it just waits for a stupid bug to come to it, and then it kills. Some fish that scuba diving instructors would point out to Circe's visitors would camouflage themselves against the sand or the coral and snap from underneath. Maybe they were the ones who won at the end of the day. Their kills were clean and quick and effortless; whereas lions or wolves had to go out, track their prey, follow it, run after it, exhaust it, catch it, and rip it apart.

"Where's John at?" Someone asked.

"Still in there."

"Nah, it's too quiet."

Hylla blinked and looked up at the ceiling. Was she..?

"Well go look if you worry about him."

The wood cracked and Hylla and I flattened ourselves against the wall. Hylla still held on to her end of the string.

The next one tripped, not looking at where he was going, too confident in a familiar place. He fell on his face and I took a knife between my fingers.

If I could throw a knife and hit something as small as a rat; I could very well hit a man's heart.

And that was the first man I killed.


	10. Gunpowder and a Very Sick Blade

**Hey guys! Wow, I've posted, like, twice in a month. I'm so proud of myself! Anyways, I hope you like this chapter. It's a bit of a major turning point for... well, I won't say it, enjoy reading it!**

**Disclaimer: Me no own**

**Dedication: My friends. Easy to judge as crazy, but you lose if you do. **

* * *

><p>10<p>

Gunpowder and a Very Sick Blade

**"We take it for granted we know the whole story - We judge a book by its cover and read what we want between selected lines." - Axl Rose**

His friends panicked when their calls to 'are you okay?' and 'Stupid bloke, you're tripping on thin air' came back empty.

They ran in after. Stupid idea: the first one tripped and Hylla hauled a cannonball and threw it at his head. I wasn't sure if he died or not, but it wasn't looking good.

I backed up into the room with another knife in my hand and held it up.

"Oh," he said, for a second looking scared. Then he composed himself and got mad. "How'd you escape? Where'd you..?"

If this were a movie, I'd have let him finish, and I would've replied something snarky and intelligent and badass. But because fights in the real world aren't fights where the fighters are told that the good guy has to win; I didn't do that, I just threw the knife. My aim didn't fail. I was scared to death that it would.

Hylla then swept the legs of the other guy out from under him before he could move and he fell and broke something important in the leg area.

The fifth guy on the other hand, my knife missed because he ran.

Hylla ran out after him and raised a gun. Her finger pulled the trigger and I heard a fall.

"Thank God the gods of aim decided to favour me and not you for two seconds," Hylla said. "He was nearly out."

"You fired a gun," I said. "Why? I could have nailed him," I said.

"You wouldn't have had time," Hylla said. "Besides. They were going to figure it out soon."

I didn't argue with her.

Okay, my knives were inside of dead people. Dead people _I'd killed. _Oh my god, I was officially a murderer and a criminal and I could go in prison for life and be stuck wearing orange jumpsuits and stuck between four walls for the rest of my life. My heart beat a whole lot faster. I wasn't sure whether I was just panicking, feeling guilty, or getting an overdose of adrenaline.

But those knives were still knives. They were still metal. They were still sharp. I could still throw them. And I wasn't exactly in a position to me picky.

I knelt next to the two pirates who'd died. It was a lot different when I killed a pirate than when Hylla did. For one: I felt victorious, but only for about a quarter of a second before I thought _that man is dead, and it's your fault. _

But really what bothered me was that he would've done exactly that to me. Or did the world not work like that? Were your crimes truly held against you; listed and piled up in the Underworld? Were they justified? Did the person with the shortest list and smallest pile win? I was doing something I couldn't undo, but would it be redone and held to me one day? Were your crimes considered crimes if that's under what you'd been living for the last months? Was this some kind of… of rightful evil? Was there such a thing?

Now was not a good time to think these deep thoughts.

Alright, I didn't have to _touch _him. I could just grab the handle and…

Oh gods, blood was trickling out, like maple trees tapped for syrup. Oh, there went my enjoyment of pancakes as well… Oh gods, that was…

I just grabbed the other before I could change my mind. This one was stuck. Oh gods, against _what? _

I was really panicking at this point. Hylla took the blade from me and rubbed it on her top, before handing it back, the blade clean. Somehow that calmed me down an ounce.

"You're amazing," she said. "You're my little sister and I'm supposed to tell you to be good and not to play with sharp things like I always have, but you're amazing."

I nodded, although I felt more 'scared' than 'amazing'.

She touched my cheek. "If you wouldn't have killed him, I would've. There was no way he was going to ever r… do those things to you. There is such a thing as self-defence."

We jumped over the bodies and looked at the forecastle. Hammocks and simple straw beds were here and there. Bundles of personal property like clothes too. The accordion was on the floor, and so was the gunshot body.

I wanted to find Andrew's hammock and light it on fire all of a sudden, it just felt like I had to make vengeance even bigger when it came to him. But I had my priorities. Besides, the fire would catch to the rest of the ship and that would suck.

"What now?" I asked.

"We can go upstairs, where the others will be on deck. I'm estimating about fifteen of them are left. Or we can try and drag some of them down here bit by bit. They won't all come down. And if they do…"

"That won't happen," I said.

"Then we need their attention," Hylla said.

I took out a gun. "I can shoot."

"No," she said. "Save your bullets. Scream, and shoot the one who comes down. Save your knives for hand-to-hand. Also, at least one bullet; keep it as an emergency."

It hit me that most people had emergency flashlights in their cars, or emergency make-up in their purses for cocktail parties. Maybe this was what demigods did.

_Go up, now, _a voice in the back of my head said. _You don't win by enclosing yourself. And the unconscient ones _will _wake up. Backing yourself up against walls is a sure way to get killed when you're fighting greater numbers._

I recognised Bellona's voice and figured that the advice of a war goddess was very valuable at the moment.

"No, I won't." I said. "Let's go, upstairs, now!"

"Why? Rey, what are you..?"

I grabbed her hand and pulled.

"We have to!"

"Who said so?" Hylla asked.

"Mom!"

"-Is something you've never said before," Hylla finished. She followed me, even took the lead. I guessed that she wanted to protect me from anything shooting downwards.

I decided to let her. If it was going to make her feel better; then by all means.

We were climbing the stairs when the first pirate crossed our way.

"Reyna!" Hylla said as she ducked. I threw a knife without thinking about it, so thank gods she _did _duck.

It sailed past the first guy's ear but struck the first one in the neck, which got him off-balance, falling against his partner. They fell down the stairs, and I jumped and caught my feet onto the railing on either side to avoid them, my hands on the walls to stabilise myself. Hylla pushed them away.

I looked over my shoulder. The one I hadn't knifed was knocked out, which I guessed happened a lot to people who fell down stairs. The other had his hands around the knife and he pulled it out. Blood gushed and he chocked, either on it or by trying to breathe, I didn't know. I wasn't a doctor (and frankly my chances of becoming one had become significantly lower in the last twenty minutes). Although my stomach tightened, I kept my head in the moment. He wouldn't be getting up anytime soon.

"We're good," I said, jumping back onto the stairs. My feet didn't like that- _owe. _

Hylla got up, and kept going up. We paused at the door.

"Ideas?" I whispered once we reached the top of the staircase. It was like a giant trapdoor in the floor of the ship. I imagined that it'd been closed –which was why Hylla's gunshot had gone by unnoticed-, but that these guys had left it open.

The other pirates were all bunched together on the Forecastle Deck, talking about something loudly and passionately. If one turned around and spotted us, we were dead.

Hylla surveyed the space.

"We'll need something big to knock out a bunch at once. Arrows would be useful since they're quieter than guns."

"That would test our ability to _use _a bow and an arrow. Besides, we don't have one." I said.

"I know, I'm just throwing ideas," she said, clucking her tongue.

I looked around. I couldn't see anybody from where I stood.

"I'm thinking that gunpowder would be pretty powerful," I said. "Like… in those cartoons… When the guy's setting up a line of gunpowder and he sets a match to it, the flame travels down the trail, and blows up the barrel? I bet there's some downstairs, for the cannons. I could do that."

"And blow yourself up? That'd be too dangerous, no way are you doing that," Hylla said. My jaw dropped. So to make this clear; she was letting me handle knives and swords and fight for my life, but apparently playing with gunpowder wasn't? My sister made no sense.

"I'll do it." She said. "I think I have one more spell left that I can use… One last thing I can do before the magic Circe gave me drained."

Hylla wasn't all that great at magic, she told me once (when we were on the ship, of course) that it was the blood of Bellona protesting against the magic. And now that Circe was dead and we were far away from the island and she hadn't used magic in about forever; I was kind-of cynical about the whole thing.

Besides; part of me didn't believe in magic anymore. I mean, it was still there, but snapping your fingers and getting out of messes seemed too good to be real right now. A piece of candy that was way too sweet.

We headed back down, knocked out a guy who was waking up, and found gun powder. My job was to find a lighter, which I didn't because the lighter presumably wasn't invented by the time this ship was around. But I did find a flint stick.

Something bothered me, like a voice in the back of my head. That wasn't Bellona.

Why anybody else hadn't come down after us. Why? We hadn't exactly been_ quiet_.

We climbed back up, and the next part was terrifying to me.

I had to stand there, on hold. I'd never used a flint stick before, but I'd already watched a couple of wilderness survival shows when nothing else was on and Hope and I were bored enough to watch them. I knew at least how it was done. That seemed like so little right now. It seemed useless and stupid and foolish. I felt like a little kid pretending to be an able warrior. Like those little kids with little plastic cell phones and car keys who make-believed that they were grown-ups, but would get crushed if they were.

_Death in battle is honourable. _Bellona said.

_Maybe so, but_ _I don't want to die in battle- I need a plan…_

Hylla was moving carefully and quietly, but quickly at the same time. She didn't make a single noise as she moved on the deck with the rusty pail she'd filled with gunpowder. She moved her hands in slow and wide movements, and muttered whatever chant she was muttering under her breath. It was like an invisible hand had picked up the bucket, and was now making it float across the ship's floor, black trails like a tram's tracks.

I had no idea what she was going. As a rule, magic training didn't start until you were thirteen and I only turned that age in November. Was it November right now? Possibly. It felt like forever had passed since I'd last seen a calendar.

How everybody stayed clueless of the flying bucket amazed me, and terrified me at once because the second that one turned around, there went my sister. She suddenly turned around, her eyes wide. They were tired because of the magic, I could tell, but also shocked.

She hurried back to where I was and pointed frantically.

And then I realised why they were so preoccupied.

Another ship was sailing towards the Queen Anne's Avenge…

That's why they'd only sent a few people after us despite the noise; because they needed these people on deck.

From what I could tell, it was a cruise ship- there must be plenty of those on the sea. It was far out, but the pirates were getting excited- they'd finally get to see a ship and highjack another one and la-di-da.

Hylla grabbed me from behind and put an arm above my mouth.

_ They don't know we're out yet. We can just jump ships- literally. _ I thought. Hylla dragged me back under the deck.

I gave her a look so she knew I understood, and she let me go.

"Let's wait it out," she whispered in my ear.

"Once they attack the other boat we run to it, we help them fight off the pirates and get out of here," I said, laying out the game plan.

"Deal." I said. We both flattened ourselves against the walls and I realised how exhausting that'd been. Just the getting-out-of-jail part had taken forever. It was harder than it must've looked, and for someone who hadn't walked into much open space for –what- months and had nearly forgotten what stairs looked like…

I recovered my breath and met Hylla's eyes. She squeezed my hand.

"It's nearly over," she promised. I nodded.

"It's nearly over," I repeated. Mostly because she deserved to hear it too.

I was itching to go above deck and figure out how far this boat was. The pirates were getting all excited and speaking in pirate slang and ancestral English, so I didn't understand a thing. I heard yelling and protesting and finally Blackbeard said something like 'let the ship approach'.

A few minutes later there was talk of a white flag, and there Blackbeard's order was 'let their leader come on ours'. I caught my breath.

_No. _

This was… This was one of their sister ships, an ally of some sort. Maybe the Queen Anne's Revenge itself if they hadcaught up to that bastard Percy Jackson. Maybe it was an illegal fishing boat or something- I'd heard of those sailing from one country's seas to another.

_No, it's a cruise ship. What the frigg does that mean?_

I darted up the steps and I heard Hylla snap my name to get me to stop but I didn't. I poked my head above to see who was there and what was going on.

A plank of wood had been extended, and a young guy, college aged, was standing on its edge. He must've walked from the cruise ship the pirate vessel was linked to. His sandy blond hair and blue eyes made him _very _easy to look at. Even the scar on his face made him look like he'd done some pretty intense things.

I shut that part of my brain off.

"A crew of twenty, hmm?" Handsome and blue eyes said.

"Twenty or so." Blackbeard said. "Depends. And our prisoners are fighters when they want to be."

"I'd be interested in meeting the prisoners." Handsome and blue eyes said. "What are they? Demigods?"

"Sisters," he said. "Daughters of war; rare at that. They're in the holding cell. There was a stirrup earlier; my men are calming 'em down." Blackbeard said.

_ Calming us down. Sure. Might be what their feverish unconscient dreams are about, _I thought. But I smiled. He had no idea… Not that that helped if he sent someone to get us, but I liked the idea that we were totally catching him off-guard.

"For what is your cause? Will you buy them from us?" Blackbeard asked. Handsome blue eyes laughed and suddenly, he wasn't so great anymore. He was cold. I nearly felt a chill go down my spine.

"Buy? What do you want- gold? Because I have gold, but it would be a fair enough payment on my behalf if I let you _live._" He said.

"Is that a threat?" Blackbeard growled.

"No, a promise," he said.

"Don't get cocky with me, child of Hermes."

The son of Hermes -as I tried to figure who his father was- drew a sword and landed it under his chin.

"That's Luke to you," he said. Guess Handsome and blue eyes had a name now. Good; Handsome wasn't working on him anymore. Never had, when I took in his harshness.

"Alright then, _Luke, _what is your cause? Why are you gathering mercenaries in the English seas?"

"We're not in the English seas," Luke said. "Your equipment is old and outdated. You're in the Pacific. That's on the West coast of America if you know what America is."

"Of course I know what America is!" Blackbeard bellowed. I was guessing that it was an act because he pronounced it wrong. For the first time I wondered how old Blackbeard really was and in what time frame he thought we were. "Do you know nothing about me? I am the terror of their coasts! The scourge of the seven seas!"

"_Was_," Luke said. "I'm afraid this… Circe story of yours means that you've missed a good chunk of history. To the world you are dead. To the world you are a memory and you have no power."

"It doesn't matter!" Blackbeard said. "I am freed now! I will be terror!"

"I bet _you_ made a reallycute guinea pig." Luke said. "I'm surprised they didn't put you down for rabies."

Okay, so I didn't like this boy very much, but I had to hand it to him; I thought I was the only one that could get Blackbeard's face to turn colours like that.

"I am not illiterate! I know land and oceans!" Blackbeard said.

"Really? I thought you were. That was the only explanation I could figure out as to why you kept him," Luke said nudging his towards –hey, he _was_ still alive, where had he been all this time? - Andrew. "And the surgeon of course; but no matter. I fight for my Lord, and I ask for your vessel and alliance on his behalf."

"Hermes? What would I have to do with the Messenger god?" Blackbeard grunted.

"Not Hermes." Luke snapped, as if his father was terrible. "Kronos."

A dead silence inflicted itself onboard and I assumed it was really bad.

"Kronos the Titan Lord." Blackbeard said.

"Oh, you're not illiterate after all," Luke said.

"I may be illiterate, but I know a Titan when I see one," Blackbeard said. He looked shocked. Not scared, not petrified, but shocked by Luke plenty. "And I know a traitor to Olympus when I see one too."

I scanned my brain to try to figure out what Olympus was. I racked everything I knew about the mythological world; dream with Bellona, Hylla's bits and bobs, Circe's old stories… It was where the gods crashed, wasn't it? Their home? Was that where the fields of Mars that Bellona had showed me were? On Olympus?

I thought back to what she'd said about the fields. 'They' fight here. Who was 'they'? I'd missed or discarded that fact back when Bellona had mentioned it, but now the detail bugged me, like a spot on a windshield. I couldn't get it out of my head, and considering I was trying to figure out what was happening; I had to.

"I'm not a traitor," Luke said stiffly, like this hit a sensitive spot, which dragged me back to reality. "I'm not a traitor to something that's never meant a drachma to me."

Drachma?

"Olympus means something to me. Wenches or not, whether they chew at our rations or not-" What _rations, you barely feed us?_ I wondered. "-They're not going to fight against where they're from. I have enough respect to them for that."

How touching.

"Reyna!" Hylla whispered. Her voice was nearly at its normal level now- she must've been trying to get my attention for a while.

I turned to her and motioned my hand cutting across my throat before turning back.

A pair of grey eyes had landed on us. Oh no. Andrew.

But for some reason -although I didn't duck or hide or anything- he looked away.

Luke looked cold outside, like I'd heard in his voice.

"Well then. That's a no."

"You promised us direction," Blackbeard said, raising a riffle at Luke's chest. "Tell us where the nearest Olympian shore is or I shoot."

Luke raised an eyebrow.

"I don't imagine that my crew will be happy if you do that."

"You'll be dead anyways, so I suppose you wouldn't find out." Blackbeard said. Luke contemplated that for a few seconds before saying;

"Head South East until you get to a place called Seattle."

"And if I want to go to England?"

"Stop at a place called Vancouver, which is at the North East, and refuel." Luke said. "It's in the country above the current Olympus. They call it Canada now. Or you can go south and find San Francisco. But that's unlucky land- Mount Othrys and so forth. I don't personally find it unlucky, but I know that demigods are superstitious."

"Aye. You may leave." Blackbeard said, waving his riffle towards Luke's ship. Luke turned around and I noticed a sword at his side. The second my eyes landed on it, my head hurt. Buzzing took over the inside of my head. My eyes burned and I had to look away. I sighed in pain.

That weapon… it wasn't right. It felt like… like it had a pulse of its own. Something about that weapon was _not _right. It was at war with itself- forget bringing it to a _real_ war!

He stopped and turned back.

"Your ship is old, starving, and you frankly don't have any idea what the new world is." Luke said. "You dare bring your men in these seas?"

"My men dare come with me." Blackbeard said. "They had choices."

"Well let me offer them one more," Luke said. He had the kind of face of someone that knew he was going to be successful. "My ship," he said. "New armor, new weaponry, a new life they can manage in, and live thoroughly. After my army is done with mercenaries, they can go to shore and spend the wealth my master shall give them as they want."

"Stop," Blackbeard said. "My men can leave me, but they cannot leave Olympus."

"I have," Luke said. "And it's paid off. Look at me, look at my weapon, look at this quality ship under my control. You want the best for your men, don't you? That's what being a Captain is all about."

Blackbeard's eyes looked heavy. "The best is not treachery and betrayal."

"Says a pirate," Luke said after a short laugh. "Surely going against the law once is the same as going against the law twice."

"If you go; you leave me, and you leave Olympus," Blackbeard said to his men. I felt something for him all of a sudden. Whatever he was and whatever he did or had done to us; Blackbeard believed in this. He believed in Olympus and he wasn't about to let go. He was loyal to something. Wasn't that what I was trying to do? Hold on to something? Not let go?

That burst of gushy didn't mean I liked him any better, or respected him more. He was still nothing. But I noticed.

A man came forth.

"Aye," he said. "I need to find out what happened to me old mother. I need to go places. The pirate loot was to pay off school, but if that's useless now then so is this. I don't owe anything to Olympus, I'm mortal." He walked away.

Another two chimed in, and finally one more went forth; I recognized small and skinny and even worst-off-than-usual looking Andrew. I mean, his face was brutal. Cheeks sunk in, cut across the forehead, his lip slit. For a second I wondered if when the pirates weren't taking their anger or whatever it was on _us, _they were taking it out on _him. _

"I might be treated right this time." Andrew said. "There are other half-bloods on your ship?

Andrew was a half-blood. I'd never thought he was anything like me. I'd never thought of him as something more than a two dimensional face that came, annoyed me, and went.

I suddenly started wondering about all these pirates. They had to be from somewhere? Why had they chosen a life of piracy?

"All half-bloods," Luke promised. "You are a demigod?"

"My mum wasn't around when I was a baby," Andrew said. "But I wasn't claimed when Blackbeard took me from Camp."

_Camp? What is this 'camp'? _I wondered.

"One day all half-bloods will be claimed," Luke promised. "They will be treated right as well. Believe me Andrew; I know a ton of kids your age who've been through exactly that. Remind me to introduce you to Ethan."

"I'd like that," Andrew said. "That's… that's never happened to me. Not even other half-bloods give me chances. People don't in general. They ignore me. They never thing that I might be trying to do something good, or be helpful. That I might be trying to tell them something… People still do it now."

Puzzle pieces clicked in my mind in a way I was surprised they could. Why he was always around me, why he tried to talk to me, why he volunteered to come down all the time, he'd fixed the one piece of clothing I had to spare…

The way that Luke said that Andrew was educated and knew how to read and how he said that he'd been taken from 'camp' whatever that was… He'd been kidnapped. I'd always thrown him into the same pile as the other pirates. Never had I thought of him as being an own person with his own standards, and his own history, and his own merits. I'd just judged him as 'one of them'.

And even worst he… me… like in a…

_I'm sorry Andrew, _I suddenly realized. _It wasn't a good time for you to try and reach out to me. I wasn't fair to you either. I promise I won't do it again. _

"I know the feeling. Come, all four of you. I hope our paths do not cross again, Captain Blackbeard." Luke said. "I highly doubt the presence of a white flag next time."

The four rebels and Luke crossed the plank of wood onto the cruise ship and the plank was pushed into the sea. For a second I wondered if I could run, jump on it and float off.

I determined that no, and I watched the cruise boat sail away like the other pirates.

"Well, back to the wenches." Blackbeard said.

_Shoot_

I scratched my knife across the magnesium flint stick and luckily –nearly miraculously, and I mean that literally- I got a healthy spark on the first try, and it traveled down the black trail.

And blew up once it reached the big pile that the bucket had emptied its left-overs as. _  
><em>


	11. Greyhounds and Cats

**Oh my gods I am exhausted but very proud of myself. I just updated three stories today, and posted my story for the Percy Jackson ship week. Whoo. It'd be less impressive if I weren't leaving for a visit to some out-of-the-city family today, and if I hadn't had to pack and help my two siblings pack. **

**Anyway, here is today's chapter! It's... harsh... But so is the story in general. Enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: Me no own Rey and Hylla.**

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><p>11<p>

**Greyhounds and Cats **

**"Survivors aren't always the strongest; sometimes they're the smartest, but more often simply the luckiest."  
>― Carrie Ryan, The Dark and Hollow Places<strong>

Obviously they realized what was going on when that happened.

Well, those who woke up anyways.

Don't get me wrong; I knew exactly what happened when things exploded and people were there. And this one was full flame.

Gunpowder didn't explode all that quickly. But it went up in flames.

The blast kind-of pushed Hylla and I backwards and I landed uncomfortably on my wrist. Like; felt-it-crack-and-probaly-would-have-heard-it-if-it-weren't-for-the-freaking-explosion kind of uncomfortable landing…

Hylla and I got up, coughing.

I was freaking shocked to see that some of the pirates were still alive.

"Oh, for the love of…" Hylla drew her sword and we attacked while the remaining nine pirates were down. Three of them looked to me as if they'd stay down.

Three of them were up on their feet right away. Two charged Hylla since she was bigger and older, one charged me. I caught a blade on my knife and twisted it quickly so that all the pressure that the pirate put against it was suddenly just weighing him down. He stumbled forwards and I drew another knife, slashing him across the back with both knives. It looked like an animal had clawed him.

My wrist didn't hold up to that and I dropped one of the knives, pain shooting up my whole left arm. At least it was the left.

He roared in pain, and turned back towards me. Uh oh. He was mad.

Then I got grabbed from behind and thrown over the deck.

"REY!" Hylla yelled.

I flipped onto my back to see what was going on and I got tackled by the newcoming pirate. Literally, he was spread over me. I couldn't move no matter how hard I struggled- and believe me, I struggle _a lot_.

"You and your sister thought you were smart, eh?" He said, his face too close to mine for comfort. "Trying to throw the crew, eh?"

I didn't reply. I was too busy collecting spit in my mouth.

"You're just a little girl," the pirate said. "You can't really work these things."

I gathered all the spit near my lips and then spat. It reached his face. He closed his eyes and turned his head to the left.

"You little brat," he said.

The other pirate leaned over me too, his knife pressing against my throat. I felt the skin prickle and tear and I choked in surprise.

"We'll show you what happens to brat that don't behave," the newcomer said.

That's when I felt one hand at the bottom hem of my shirt, and suddenly it started getting pulled out. I yelled as loud as I possibly could and struggled harder than ever. They both laughed and I had to think fast but what his hands were doing blurred my brain. Finally I got one hand free, but it didn't seem to bother them much because I wasn't armed. Oh gosh. Oh gosh, they were going to…

_Everyday objects are often magic, _Bellona's voice said in my head. Even her voice sounded hurried and rushed and panicked.

Everyday objects…

His hand was closing on me.

Crap, the whistle!

I reached for my pocket, trying not to give the pirate ideas, reached in and managed to press it to my lips before anyone could stop me.

The sound was shrill and high-pitched and it lasted an awful long time. It sounded like a… A dog whistle…

That was the first time I saw them; two greyhounds with no fur but smooth gold or silver bodies, long and muscled legs, flat heads and floppy ears.

One of them grabbed the sleeve of the pirate flopped over me, growling. The other one grabbed the pirate squatting near my shoulder and literally _threw him down. _I was maybe more scared by these dogs than by the pirates… but they had come at my whistle, right? They were my allies for now.

Finally the pirate was bitten and battered enough that he'd turned to a bad angle to try and swat the greyhound away, and I managed to kick him off, grab my knife and sink it in his chest.

I didn't care that that kind of death was slow. I didn't have any remorse. I would have used Chinese Water torture if I'd had to. I would have slowly choked him. I would have prayed to Bellona asking for the slowest and most painful death there was and I would have done it on him.

I would never forget his face because of what he'd nearly done to me.

I turned to the other one, who was bleeding on the neck. There was no way that a normal dog bite was that deep. He was taken care of, either way. The two dogs looked up at me, as if they'd decided I was their master.

I pushed the pirate off my legs, pulled my shirt down, and got up, grabbing my two knives.

"Okay boys," I said. There are five left." I said. "Let's go."

Hylla was way too swamped with pirates. I saw that one of her biggest problems was the provost.

He was discipline master. He broke up fights, whipped people, and punished them in other ways for work (though I suspected it was also his fun). He would carry pepper spray if he knew what it was, and probably slept with one of Bellona's M16's under his pillow!

And I was flying at him with a dagger and a broken hand.

He looked surprised himself, which gave me a second to jump on his feet to stun him, and gear up my knee to hit him in the groin. He doubled over, but charged at Reyna's legs while he was there. She fell to her back but thrust her dagger forwards before he could do anything. She would've hit him but he rolled out of the way, giving her the time to get back to her feet.

The Greyhounds were busy with another pirate that'd been giving Hylla trouble.

"You haven't got enough of the 'cat, now have you?" He said taking out the whip.

It was the best look I'd gotten at it so far since my back wasn't to it (or was it on my back? What was the correct way to phrase that?). It was just a stick with nine lengths of insanely painful leather to get whipped with.

He swung it forwards but I avoided it. He tried again, but I ducked. It was harder for him to control the whip; it was obviously not his weapon. He'd just taken it out for impression and fear factor.

_Born to be strong, _I chanted in my head, _born to be strong._

"Harder when I'm not chained to a mast, now isn't it?" I taunted.

"Why you little-" he dashed again but only got the back of my hand. It was already in pain anyways, I tried to ignore it. That infuriated him and he decided to drop the whip and take up something else. He twisted a golden band at his wrist and it became a bronze spear. He'd have reach.

Crap, I was so dead it wasn't even funny.

But I still didn't let it show. I could nearly imagine my mother's approval in the back of my head.

He lunged at me and I backed up. He lunged again and I backed up. He was very slow at recharging, pushing me back against the railing slowly and surely. I had maybe a few seconds to pull something after he lunged.

He lunged once again and I jumped and stuck a leg out, so my foot landed with all my pressure on the spear. I was just at the part of the spear that wasn't supported by the ground or the Provost and...

CRACK!

"NO!" He roared. "Why you little…"

"Winner?" I tried. He tried to pull out another weapon but I threw mine. It impaled itself through his hand and he pulled back. He pulled the dagger from his hand. The blood against the gold somehow turned my senses on and gave me more energy. I'd hit blood; I could finish the job.

He threw it overboard and I swore internally, hoping my Mom _wasn't _in there that particular moment.

I was defenceless.

"I begged Blackbeard to finally get to kill you," he said. "You were more trouble than you're worth. Prepare to die, little girl."

I brought my hand to my house and whistled. The two dogs came racing like Nascars.

I don't know if you've ever seen trained police force German shepherds take down criminals, but I'm imagining that it looks like what the dogs did. On came and grabbed on to the provost's arm.

He tried to shake, but that dog was not letting go. He even somehow managed to raise his arm off the ground- but the dog hung off like a Christmas decoration, clinging to it by the teeth.

He tried to kick the dog but started yelling in pain and there was a sound like kicking a fridge. I grinned. These dogs were completely metal robotics!

"Stubbed toes?" I asked sweetly. He looked at me with pure hate (which I could live with) and tried to shake off the dog again.

I scrambled to pick up the knife I'd had my hands on earlier, before my bad hand had dropped it and I grabbed the provost from behind, my knife on his throat to prompt him to be still.

"If you stop fighting now, I won't have to hurt you worst." I said. My hand hurt so bad- I kept thinking _please say yes_.

"Never," he said. "I am child of war, I won't stop."

He turned around, hitting me in the stomach with his fear. I didn't bleed, thankfully, because the pressure wasn't intense. The silver greyhound was still hanging on his arm.

I whistled again, and the Gold dog came rushing forwards, getting the Provost by surprise and making him tumble to the ground.

"Well you're out of luck, because same here." I said.

I took the cat he'd recently dropped, but my hand faltered at that. His back was arched- right there, very close.

But I couldn't do that to him. I couldn't. It was just… punishment. It didn't kill or take someone out of a fight that quickly, it just hurt a whole lot beforehand. I wouldn't do that. If I had to kill someone; fine. Survival of the fittest. I would die for Hylla, but I would not die for my conscience.

But I would not play with my food.

So I dropped the cat, grabbed his spear, kicked his back and sent him sprawling to the floor. I pushed down on his shoulders with his spear, holding it down with my elbows and pressing the gold dagger (which I hoped not to lose like the last one) against his throat.

"If I'm more trouble than I'm worth, I must be worth a small fortune. Because I am _loads _of trouble." I said quietly.

His scream when I impaled his throat?

Not so quiet.

This kill made me feel heavy and tired for some reason, as I got up.

I just wanted this to be over, so I could get my hand bandaged, I could lie down, maybe sleep or eat or something… My mouth was dry as the dessert.

I should have been ecstatic. We were nearly there, they were nearly all taken care of, under our control… We'd taken a pirate ship! A freaking pirate ship! _Blackbeard's _freaking pirate ship! That was incredible, and nobody had done it before. Or at least nobody had kept it that way considering they were all still free. But the only thing I could think of was 'it's nearly over, I can get out of here'.

"Why not?" The provost asked.

"Because that's what you would have done." I said. _We were nearly there, they were nearly all taken care of, under our control… _

That's when I realised that I hadn't seen Hylla and Blackbeard in a while…

And I looked up at the totally wrong moment.

Because my sister was playing a dangerous game with a pirate, hanging on rope ladders and the ropes attached to sails, dozens of feet in the air.


	12. Chutes and Ladders

**Ah.**

**I'm actually quite ashamed to be posting this after **_four months of leaving you all waiting. _**I'm really sorry guys! See, this story's Word document got lost on my USB key and desktop. Finding it wasn't my priority because of a load of other stuff going on, but now it is. I think I'm going to publish every Friday from now on, now that my Fridays are free because I wrapped up my other multi-chapter story. I don't know if anyone is going to read this still, but if so I apologize for the long wait.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Reyna and Hylla**

**Dedication: To the people who waited. I hope you enjoy this :)**

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><p>12<p>

Chutes and Ladders

**It is better to conquer yourself than to win a thousand battles. Then the victory is yours. It cannot be taken from you, not by angels or by demons, heaven or hell.**  
><strong>-Buddha<strong>

The thing about rope ladders was that climbing them was a lot harder than it looked. They swung around and they weren't particularly sturdy, which didn't give you a solid base.

Every now and then Blackbeard would look over his shoulder and climb some more. Hylla wasn't _that _far behind after all. And when she caught him one of them wasn't getting out of there.

She climbed and raised her sword and swiped at Blackbeard's ankle. He yelled in pain and anger and swung back at her, but Hylla ducked and raised her sword to meet the second swipe. She had to get the sword out of his hand.

That's when I got stabbed in the shoulder.

It stung, and I knew right away that there was poison on that blade. I also knew that I wasn't out of the woods yet, and I had to keep fighting.

* * *

><p>Climbing was becoming harder and harder. My knees felt like they were locking into place, slowly starting to refuse to move at all. It felt like sacks of flour were being thrown over my shoulder for each step I took, making everything more and more complicated. My jaw was definitely fractured somehow, Reyna hadn't been able to help that much. The pain was horrendous, I nearly <em>wished <em>I'd pass out from it.

But not now. I had a job. I'd taken it onto myself when I ran away with Reyna six years ago, and it wasn't now that I'd give it up. She was my little sister, and he'd tried to harm her. There was hell to pay when you hurt someone's little sister, and I was going to make him pay up.

Blackbeard looked over his shoulder.

"You damn wench!" He cried. He swung his sword and I managed to duck. My hands slipped, and though I grabbed on to the rope ladder we were climbing I fell behind. I had a spare coil of rope wrapped around my wrist and I had it at the ready. It would be all too simple for Blackbeard to cut the ladders behind him and use any of the surrounding ropes to get down himself; I wanted to be able to catch onto something if he did that- maybe even grab one of his ankles.

My mind had switched. Last time I'd been in a risky situation like this, when the island had been under siege, I'd panicked completely. Now I was much more rational. I actually had a plan, and a backup, and I'd contemplated options.

"You don't know when to give up," Blackbeard growled.

_That would be never. You never give up in a fight. _I wanted to shout. I tried to open my mouth but the pain nearly made me let go.

Blackbeard kept climbing, and I kept trying to slit his ankles and parrying off his own attacks.

Finally there was no rope left to climb, and he swung his leg over the boom- a big horizontal pillar of wood that held up sails. There were three of them on the mainmast, the mast in the center of the ship that we were on, and we were on the highest boom.

Balanced on it perfectly, Blackbeard ventured down.

"Come daughter of war," Blackbeard said, "If you think your blood bests mine."

Without knowing if I had that kind of balance, I got myself up there, holding my sword ready to duel.

He chuckled. "Daughters of Bellona always pick the _stupidest _ways to die."

He lunged forwards but I blocked him. While he wasn't on a very steady base, I pushed his sword back with all my strength. I was fighting with two hands instead of one. Not as flashy, not as sophisticated or heroic-looking- but dying wasn't very sophisticated so I had to make my pick and put the odds on my side.

_Hylla, look at him. He's right-handed, and you're left-handed. That's a clear advantage._ I heard Bellona say in my head.

_Get out, _I thought. _You haven't helped for six years. Gods damn me if you start now._

_Hylla, don't be rash._

I nearly got hit in the arm by Blackbeard.

_I'm not! I have spent three patient months on this ship thinking about it. Thinking every detail over. Thinking over how I've had to pull all the weight. I had to make all the decisions. I was still a child when I had to take care of my sister. I had to save us once, I'll save us again. And I won't be using your help this time either._

_Hylla, why would I have helped? _

I swung and Blackbeard was nearly at the end of the boom. If I could push him off that would be swell.

He fought back and had me backing up towards the mast.

I tried to sound brave. "Why are you even trying, old man? I'm young and pissed off, and I ain't craving celery either. There is no way I am letting you get off this ship alive. I am a daughter of Bellona!"

"Boasting in battle doesn't help." Blackbeard said. "It wastes time and gives it to your enemy to figure things out."

_You were capable. You have always been capable, Hylla. Reyna on the deck is experiencing this as we speak, the bouquet of instincts that are waking up inside her are infinite. She's using them, if you could only see how far she's come. _

I dodged a sword strike. My mouth tasted like blood and I felt some trailing from the corner of my lips. No doubt it thrilled Blackbeard. He had that kind of primitive aspect to him. I wouldn't lie by saying that drawing blood didn't thrill me right now either.

Bellona kept going: Why_ would I have helped a perfectly strong, capable young woman- _

I ducked again.

_-who didn't need my help to get to where she had to be?_

I swiped at Blackbeard's legs but he backed up, nearly falling from the boom in his haste. Unfortunately he caught himself. Blackbeard and I were struggling to stay on the thin line between warrior and tightrope artist now. We had to if we wanted to stay alive.

_Why do you think I'm helping so little now? _Bellona asked.

Blackbeard was advancing now, gaining on me, making me back up.

_I'm not even helping Reyna right now._

Reyna?

I panicked and looked down. I wasn't hit with a wave of vertigo, I was hit with a wave of dread.

The two metal dogs were thrown overboard, in a rescue raft hooked to the side of the ship. The last two pirates onboard were dueling Reyna, and she was holding up best as she could with the only dagger she had left.

One of them grabbed her by the hair. I heard her scream, and with a swing of her arm, Reyna cut her own hair. She backed away from the pirate, who now held strands of ink black locks, but directly into another. He disarmed her from behind. Reyna ducked under his arm and was free.

Free, but totally helpless, without a single weapon at her reach, and an injured hand to top it off.

She needed help.

_I won't give you a speech, _Bellona said in my ear.

While I'd been focusing on Reyna, Blackbeard had me pinned against the mast.

_But I have always believed –and that philosophy is what differences me from Mars, whose child you see here- that being a warrior is about more than knowing how to fight._

I looked down and then at Blackbeard. His grin was malicious, he knew he had me.

Reyna was free to move anywhere. She had a better chance than I had of fighting her opponents off. She had more resources at her disposal and less cahnce of slipping and killing herself while she fought.

She was my little sister. And that alone would have made me do anything

Much like it already had, as a matter of fact. The pirates could take me away, get too close for my liking, get too drunk… but they'd mention Reyna and I was ready not to fight them, as much as it hurt. And they _had _done that, as a matter of fact.

I threw down my sword. Maybe it was my aim, maybe it was the wind, maybe it was a miracle- but it fell just a short bit in front of Reyna.

_Your sister's destiny may not yet be written in stone, but it is full of greatness. _Bellona promised me.

She lunged, grabbed it, and straightened up. Reyna swung my sword, hitting one pirate across the face, and fell back to dodge another swing, holding herself up by a hand to stop from crashing against the floor. Her bad hand at that…

I had to rip my eyes away from her, and trust my little sister. If any of multiple past versions of myself could hear that now… I wouldn't believe that such a thing was either possible or wise. Blackbeard was laughing.

"Oh you stupid girl. Noble, brave and all," he said. "But stupid. Do you think that you just did something heroic? Well I'll tell you what, daughter of Bellona."

My mind went spiraling. I looked at the rigging –the system of pulleys and ropes controlling the sails and spread out all around me- and tried to find my options.

"I am Blackbeard! Scourge of the Seven Seas! I had a fleet of ships at my control in piracy's golden age; all those sailors at sea? They feared me! Even my own kind! You are not even a threat!"

"I got pretty far for someone so nonthreatening," I growled.

"I am a _true _son of war!" He boasted. "Your sister has no more chance of coming out of this alive than you do. And if she does, we'll make sure it's the kind of alive she doesn't even want to know about. The kind of alive you never warned her about."

My mind went narrow. It was like everything around me was a long tunnel that all ended up at _Reyna hurt. _That focused me more than I could explain, I'd become single-minded and determined.

Blackbeard teased me with his sword and I scrambled back, twisting my ankle in the process. I hissed in pain. I didn't even want to _know _what I'd just done to it.

I uncoiled the rope at my wrist and tossed it towards him, like a lasso. I secured it around his left hand and tugged at the rope. He fell, and the unexpected weight nearly brought me down with him.

I fell against the mast, struggling to hold him up.

Blackbeard shouted in rage and pawed at the knot uselessly. No wait… this was fear. Yes, I'd finally gotten it out of him. _Fear. _

Maybe I wasn't so doomed after all. I just had to hold on to keep my arm from ripping off, or my person from being dragged off the boom. The other end of the rope was tied around my wrist, after all.

But did that really matter? Couldn't I just let go of Blackbeard? He was so high above the deck, he'd just crumple against it and that'd be the last I'd have to worry about him. That man had personally done things to me that nobody could do to him. That man had had my little sister whipped and tortured and his men were fighting her now. Her hand was broken. My jaw was fractured. Did I owe him life? Did I?

Bellona's words came back to me. _Being a warrior is about more than knowing how to fight._

Killing someone was easy. Did I want to do the easy thing? If his blood was spilled, what good did it do me? I was winning this anyways; I knew that. I just had to get down from the boom. I didn't particularly want to climb down, though. Not with my ankle.

I managed to squeeze my good foot in the loop and remove my wrist, and I lowered myself down. It was a quick descent down and I nearly let go in surprise. My grip turned my knuckled white, my hair flew around.

The rope was fully stretched. Blackbeard and I were balanced over the deck, like pieces of a mobile. I was in a trickier, less stable, situation but at least I could move while he couldn't.

His arm was tied to the rope and he was yelling in pain as he dangled. Nevertheless, once we were equal to each other he threw punches and kicked. We were still fifteen feet above the ground, and that wasn't a fall I was willing to make. I didn't want to land on the wooden floorboards.

_Hylla, you can jump. If you tuck yourself into a roll, you can jump and land unharmed._

I choked. _Yes, of course. And die? No thank you Mother Dearest. _

_Hylla, I am serious. You can do this._

I held my breath. No way. I was not going to start getting help _now _out of all times. I could play with the ship's rigging. If I kicked off of Blackbeard I could gather enough momentum to swing into the nearby rope ladder. No, not with my bad ankle...

_Gods aren't present, _Bellona said._ You had to learn to survive by yourself Hylla. You had to learn to go look for your options and all the possibilities that are offered to you. So many opportunities are offered to fighters. And you did do that, Hylla, and you succeeded. _

I blinked back tears. I remember running to Bermuda and getting lost and separated from Reyna in a crowd of tourists who were rushing to the beach's docks since dolphins had been spotted. I remember one of the sorceresses –although I didn't know that at the time- bringing her back to me and asking me where my parents were. I remember the hole in my chest when I had to admit that my mom had never been around since my little sister was born, and that my Dad was dead. I remember how bitter I was to my mom for being too much of a coward to stay when Dad was brave enough to go risk his life for our country. I'd raised myself with that difference between my parents. My mother was a coward and my father was a hero, and I wanted to take after him not her. After Reyna and I had gotten kidnapped, the only thing I could think about was how much of a coward I was.

"It hurt," I said out loud. My jaw was in pain and even more tears were brought to my eyes.

_But it paid off._ The voice said. _Hylla; it's against the ancient laws for me to be there every step of the way, as well as against my moral principle. But do you honestly think I wouldn't have sent help if I thought you needed it?_

_I did need it_, I said. _You ignored me and neglected Reyna. _

_Look down at the girl fighting like a demon. Look at yourself and where you are, trying to save a bad man's life because you know that life is good. You didn't need it Hylla, you really didn't. It hurt, but I had to leave you alone. I'm here now that you've earned it Hylla. Jump. _

I looked down.

Maybe I was brave now. I was like my father, not a coward. I was strong. I would never be helpless again. That I knew for sure, I just had to secure the fact that there would be a future for me.

But was it helpless to ask for help? Or was it a sign of bravery to be able to ask for help?

Blackbeard was getting feistier. I kicked away from him and I swung backwards, but pain erupting from my ankle shot up my leg. I couldn't do this any longer.

_For her sake, you better be right._ I told the goddess.

_Stop thinking of 'for her sake'. When I said 'look down at her', you should have. You would've noticed that she doesn't need help anymore. She's not six and lost in a crowd._

_She's not indestructible either,_ I said.

I took a deep breath and let go of the rope. For a second I was weightless, and it was actually pleasant. Then, I saw the ground approaching way too fast for my liking, but managed to somehow twist my body in mid-air and tucked herself into a roll.

"NO!" Blackbeard yelled as I fell. He was right behind me.

When I hit the ground I turned it into a somersault, and came up unhurt like Bellona had said.

_Do not doubt me Hylla. I am your mother. I do love you, just from afar. And I will always be there, just not besides you. _

Blackbeard, tied up and unprepared, didn't make it out of the fall well. He squashed against the deck like a bug. I managed to get up from the somersault.

I heard a splashing sound and saw Reyna run towards the railing. Her opponent must have jumped overboard once the leader hit the deck.

Another pirate was sneaking up on Reyna, and she didn't see anything.

I grabbed a gun off the ground.

"Hey!" I barked. The pirate turned around, Reyna with, and I held him at gunpoint.

"Do you want to play games with me?" I asked looking down the gun's shaft. My voice sounded foreign and strange. Tougher, rougher, and of course beat up because of my injury.

The pirate looked left and right. He was alone.

"My aim is impeccable," I said. "Kneel, now."

He swallowed and obeyed. Reyna slammed the hilt of her knife into his temples. It might have killed him, it might have not.

Reyna pulled her dogs out from the safety boat in which they'd been thrown. They barked and growled at Blackbeard who moaned in response.

I walked up to Blackbeard and knelt next to his head. I whispered in his ear:

"Boasting in battle doesn't help. It wastes time and gives it to your enemy to figure things out."

"You're kidding," Reyna said. "He's still alive?"

"Oh gods Reyna, it doesn't matter." I said.

She looked at me. For a second I saw that little girl I'd run away from home with- small and frightened. To me she was still small and frightened. I knew, in my head, that she was tall and brave now, but I was her big sister. I would always be her big sister, and she would always be small and frightened.

"Come here," I said spreading my arms.

She ran to me and buried her face in my shoulder. I found the strength to hold her tighter.

"I love you," Reyna whispered.

I patted her hair. I hadn't heard that from her for years. Not since she was a little girl.

"I love you too, Rey." I said kissing her hair.

That's when she collapsed in my arms.


	13. New Year's Resolutions

**Happy New Year's folks! I hope you have a good year. Thank you very much for not yelling at me for the late post. **

**Disclaimer: I don't own Reyna and Hylla**

* * *

><p>13<p>

New Year's Resolutions

**Victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival.**  
><strong>-<strong>**Winston Churchill**

I woke up and I was lying on a bed. My arms and shoulders and back and neck were very confused by this- it was soft and comfortable. Not by C.C. standards of course, but comfortable anyways.

I was lightheaded and my mouth tasted bitter. I turned my head and saw Hylla sitting on the corner. She was holding my hand and tracing the lines on my palm.

"That tickles," I told her. She turned around to look at me and relief washed over her face.

"Thank gods," Hylla said. Her speech was slurred.

"Did I pass out?" I asked.

Hylla nodded. "I saw the cut on your shoulder and assumed you were poison. I made you throw up and managed to make you drink… I didn't know if it would be enough."

"It was," I said sitting up. I hugged her again. I was still expecting to wake up and be chained to the mast with newly opened wounds on my back, the provost cackling behind me. Our victory didn't feel real.

Every screeching bit of me was yelling at me to just relax and eat. I'd eat anything at this point- forget Circe's watching calories, and completely forget any aversion to peas and bread with lumpy grains I might have ever had. But I knew there was work to do, even before Bellona spoke up in the back of my head.

First; we had to save Blackbeard.

Yeah, it sounded stupid. It would've been so much easier to just leave him on the deck to die and clean up the blood later (or just leave the blood there, actually). But Hylla had gone to a lot of trouble not to kill him if she didn't have to, and she had a point. It wouldn't feel right. It would feel just like what he would do to us, and if there was one thing I wouldn't do, it was what he did. I swore it to myself.

If I were ever leader or something like that, fat chance and all but _if _I was, I'd never rule by violence. I had a feeling my instincts to draw my sword were never going to leave, and after all the saving they'd done today I wasn't sure I wanted them to. But I would never hurt people if I didn't have to.

That's what I decided weapons meant to me now. If you had them; good and you should keep them if you were going to need them, like I would always need them because I was a demigod. And I might not know what that meant yet, but I knew it meant trouble. But the weapons didn't have to come out every single time.

I felt like I was making New Year's resolutions with myself. I spent a lot of time thinking over the last few months, but right now it felt serious and terminal. Like this whole story was wrapping up.

Hylla and I had to carry Blackbeard, but it was hard because we weren't sure what was broken or not. He moaned either way.

We carried him to the Captain's quarters. The room was luxurious for a pirate ship, and for what I'd been living in. There was a bed with sheets that had managed to stay white. A map of the world was hanging on the wall; in crisp yellow paper, with old country names and those intricate wind-blowing figures at the corners, and a detailed compass. Two sabres hung crossed on the wall, and there was a wooden trunk under them. Unlit lanterns hung from the ceiling. There was a desk with another spread out map, and writing utensils. They looked dusty, as did the bookshelf. That was what Luke had said; Blackbeard couldn't read.

Which was why they'd put up with Andrew. The surgeon mustn't be a surgeon after all then, he was probably some kind of uneducated healer. Or the child of a healing god…

_Their parents were gods of wisdom and healing, yes. _Bellona said.

Thinking about Andrew made me feel guilty.

I wondered if I'd see him again. Maybe. If Luke really was a demigod, and I was a demigod too… just maybe our paths would cross again. And then I'd apologise, because he _was _being kind to me all this time- fixing my hoody, smiling at me on bad days... I just hated him for his status.

That was a mistake I wouldn't make again either, another resolution. I wouldn't judge people based on where they were from or what things looked like. I'd made that mistake my whole life and every second I'd spent being superficial and conceited and ignorant felt like a second wasted. Plus that was why Blackbeard had fallen in the end too. He hadn't expected Hylla and me to fight back.

He should know that people always fight back when that's their only option. The difference with daughters of Bellona was that we did it _well. _

We tied up the injured pirates and threw them all in separate rooms that could be locked. We didn't want them around _at all. _If they made a comeback, we were toast. We had enough trouble lugging them around, what with my hand and Hylla's jaw which was becoming increasingly painful, I could tell. She talked less and less. I tried making a joke about that, but it didn't work.

We tried to find a place to set up camp and sleep. We considered the room where the other prisoners had been kept before Blackbeard executed them. Hylla's face darkened and I knew right away that this wouldn't be it. I squeezed her hand and tried not to think about Hope.

I was sad that she died. She truly didn't deserve it. But I wondered if I'd still be her friend if she was still alive right now. I wondered if I'd be interested if she melted out of the walls and sprung up a conversation with me this very second. All the things we did and all the things we talked about… Well, they weren't important anymore. Not to me.

For the night we settled on the deck, and didn't know what to do but splurge. Even Hylla managed to chew even if it brought tears to her eyes.

Yes, yes, yes- we were wasting resources and being reckless. But we had to recharge our energy because adrenaline wouldn't last forever. My stomach felt sick after, like it'd forgotten what food was and wasn't sure what to do with it.

"I found this," Hylla said picking something up from Blackbeard's ship. It was a square of what looked like a brownie, which I'd never had in my life that I could remember.

"I had some earlier," she said. "I'm not sure what it is, but it healed my ankle alright, but I started feeling really hot and weak. Try taking some for your hand, but not too much."

It didn't help my hand much, but my shoulder felt better. I guessed that I was safe from passing out again, though Hylla had done a pretty good job at getting the stuff out of me.

We'd seen how bad the rations were. And that wasn't talking about how they were all spoiled and might make us sick. We had to get back to shore as quickly as possible. We decided to follow the advice Luke had given Blackbeard.

"We'll find some way to navigate the ship tomorrow," Hylla said. "But let's take the night off."

I tried to deal with her jaw, and Hylla bandaged my hand as best as she could. I was pretty sure she'd broken it. The best I could do was giving her some cold water soaked rag, and immobilise her jaw with a rag around her head. I would have teased her about it if it weren't so serious.

Hylla wrapped a long strip of bandage around my hand and I tried not to wince. We weren't in any rush because the two dogs were patrolling the deck, and I trusted these two. They seemed to like me enough for summoning them; I doubted they'd let pirates completely kill us. They were even listening to me when I asked them to do stupid dog tricks like 'rollover' and 'play dead', though they didn't sound thrilled about it.

Hylla also tried to fix my hair. I'd chopped it off on the left side when a pirate had grabbed it, but the cut was weird and uneven. She tried to style and even it, so that it wouldn't draw attention to me when we docked. Having short hair was the weirdest thing in the world for me; I couldn't stop touching it and being confused by how much lighter my head felt.

But it was odd; sitting cross-legged in front of her, under the stars… That was the most normal thing I'd done in a while. Even if I was receiving first aid.

"Too tight?" She asked. She spoke a bit different and muffled, and I blamed it on her jaw. I was getting more worried about that.

"I'm good," I said.

"We'll find a real doctor when we get back onshore." Hylla said. "Did this Luke say how far shore was?"

"No," I said. "Just… Seattle, south west."

"I hope it's close," Hylla said. "Then I'll never look at the ocean again."

I nodded absentmindedly.

"What do we do after?" I asked. Hylla leaned back on her hands.

"I don't know Rey. Plan A was for me to find a real job at a real spa again and to make it work. We could make it work, right? I'm just not sure I can handle that after all this." Hylla said.

"Join the army," I teased.

"Yeah, and what would happen to you? I wasn't letting us split up six years ago; I'm not letting it happen now." Hylla said. She tugged me closer to her and I leaned my head on her knees..

"We'll find something. Maybe there's something demigod out there."

"I had a dream," I said. "The first dream where Bellona talked to me, we were at a place called the fields of Mars. That has to be a demigod place, Mars is a god. There were fighters there, with armour and weapons that… well, they weren't exactly like the weapons there were on this ship, theirs were all gold. But they were close. If we can find there, we can get help."

"I suppose," Hylla said. "I just want to find a place soon. All I know about it is that you and I are never going to be separated again." She said holding my good hand. I met her eyes and nodded. I couldn't have done this without her, and I guess she couldn't have done this without me. How would we live without each other's annoying faces in our lives? And after all this? I wouldn't even want to.

She got up.

"I'll go check on Blackbeard, make sure he's still alive. I get his bed if he dies. The only alternative is Andrew's, and it's so tiny…"

"He was tiny," Reyna said.

"And sort-of cute. You missed that part while you were busy hating his guts." Hylla said with a wink. I rolled my eyes. Some things would never change.

* * *

><p>The gold dog growled at my feet. I'd been calling him 'Gold' because I am not a well of creativity.<p>

"My dog wants you to move faster," I said holding him at sword point. The pirate gulped and turned the wheel of the ship. We'd found one alive and conscient in the room of passed out pirates, untied him once he'd told us that he knew how to navigate the ship.

"We should be on course." He said.

"Good." I said. I sat back down at the railing.

Hylla had talked to Bellona overnight in a dream, and she'd seen a city with a dock apparently. That was probably Seattle, as Luke had said. I hoped that it was in today's horizons.

What would happen to Blackbeard after we docked? I had no idea. I didn't care much either. Maybe he'd be accused of stealing antique ships, or locked up in a mental alyssum for saying that he was a dead pirate that had been attacked and killed by two young girls who were daughters of the goddess or war. Nobody would believe stories about ancient gods and a magical spa in the Bermuda Triangle and mechanical dogs. Anyways, any scenario I could think of meant he was far from me, so I didn't consider them that bad.

I polished my dagger with a rag. I'd found it, it wasn't lost after all. My gold dagger had landed in an emergency boat when it'd gotten thrown out of the ship, and Hylla had managed to climb down and grab it for me. I'd decided it was mine for good now.

Speaking of lost things: the dog whistle had rolled around deck for a bit. I'd found it last night, and slipped it back in my pocket. I planned on keeping those two dogs around. They weren't exactly cute and cuddly, but neither was I. I couldn't let them run around alone, and I didn't want me to run around alone with Hylla. It was a simple solution.

Hylla was bent over the railing and she was dumping buckets of sea water over her hair, trying to wash out some of the semi-permanent layer of filth and scum. It felt good to get rid of even some of the sweat and dirt and dried blood, even if it was just that. I had a feeling I'd be scrapping at my skin forever though.

But forever wasn't how long it'd take to get to the mainland, so it was all okay.

I'd slept above deck last night. I wasn't willing to be back between four walls anytime soon. I felt like I was an origami figure, unfolded and free and open now that there was room. But when you unfolded paper there were always creases in the paper that could never go away. When I'd tried to sleep under the deck my heart had started beating like a drum and I couldn't get settled down. I was panicky and twitchy. Was this a permanent thing? Would I always hate walls? I didn't know how 'ten years from now' would work, but now I hated not having enough room.

But there was too much room, now, that was the universe's cruel but signature joke. It was a big, big world Hylla and I were going to dock in. The question now was; where to go?


	14. A Title Rightly Falls

14

A Title Rightly Falls

**It is not titles that honor men, but men that honor titles.  
>-Niccolo Machiavelli<br>**

"Land ho!" The pirate at the steering wheel said. It snapped me out of my thoughts, and I had to listen again before making out the words.

'Land ho!'

I bolted up and kicked Aurum off my leg in the process. The dog whined.

"Sorry, boy." I said. Aurum was Gold. I'd called him 'Gold' for the whole day yesterday and it came out as 'Aurum' once. I couldn't get the word off my tongue or out of my head, nor could 'Argentum' for the silver one. Hylla said that it sounded Latin. I wondered if it was just another instinct settling in- they had been for the last two days since we'd locked up all the pirates and gotten our freedom back. Anyways, I decided that I'd let this be.

I grabbed my dagger. Hylla was standing at the railing and she turned around to face me.

"Seattle dock!" She said, grinning at me.

"YES!" I shouted.

"Grab whatever you think you'll need, because we're not coming back." Hylla said with a sparkle to her eye, untying the rag around her head.

I'd never noticed that sparkle until it was gone on the pirate ship and then back, until she was happy again. And now she was, and the sparkle was back, and it was like my sister was back.

* * *

><p>I passed Blackbeard's quarters when I was running back upstairs and I stopped. I looked back the doors. Oh, gods of Olympus, why was I doing this?<p>

I opened the door. It wasn't like he had moved; he'd broken his neck or something, amongst other very important limbs. It was his own fault; I didn't feel guilty about it, and nor did Hylla. He'd have killed my sister, and amongst two evils, you're supposed to pick the lesser one. Hylla may be my big sister, but she was still the lesser one.

"We're docking," I said.

"Aye," he said. "Already?"

"We weren't far from shore," I said. "Too bad you couldn't hold out."

Okay, that part was unnecessary. It was boasting. But to me, personally, it was.

"I get it. Boasting in battle doesn't help, but when your enemy's done for, you can go." He said. I walked into the room.

"I have some questions." I said.

"Do I have a choice?"

"Yes."

He studied me for a second as if trying to figure me out. Good luck, buddy. The last few months had been so odd, and I couldn't recognise myself from point A to point B of it. My story was too weird. I couldn't even figure myself out just yet.

"The two dogs," I started, "where do they come from?"

"A treasure we captured in England. They've been dusty and abandoned. We couldn't figure out what to do with them, we didn't know they were automatons. We were going to melt them down or cut them apart for bullets and shrapnel before your sorceress captured up. You just found the whistle somewhere."

"She's not _my _sorceress. And the man with all the treasure had it," I said, making a mental note to find out what an automaton was. Maybe I'd find a library on deck. It was never something I'd enjoyed, but a computer to look up all the new words I'd heard, and books about myths would be good right now. I hated not knowing.

"Aye," Blackbeard said.

"And my second question; why did you keep us?"

"Pardon?"

"Well, you knew who our mother was. You knew she was a war goddess. This always had the potential of happening. Why'd you risk it?" I asked him.

"War prisoners," Blackbeard said. "My father's a god of war too, remember. Instincts: it's something I have, and so do you. But here's something you don't have, and that didn't burn you in this fight: ego. Hubris. Pride.

"I thought that after all these years in the weakest shape I could think of, a _rodent, _if I could just break two daughters of war I'd be back to my glory. I was trying to make myself better by making other people worst." Blackbeard said. "It's easy for us children of war to fall for it, we want to be the best and the strongest. We try not to ask for help, we try to handle more than we can, we try not to forgive, we try not to move on. But it's all a mistake. Never fall for that, girl." He said. His words were slow and tired. "Reyna, your name is, right?"

"Yes," I said. Hearing him know my name felt good. Like maybe he had considered me human after all. "Reyna Sabourin." Blackbeard didn't nod or anything, his neck was broken after all.

"The people are going to come in the ship and access situation," I said. "They'll fix you up."

"I don't deserve to," he said. "It's past my time, and I'm a bit of a fail at being a pirate after this."

"Blackbeard was the only pirate I knew about when I was a kid," I said. "You've been romanticised by humans for years. They've written books and movies about you."

"Movies?"

"It's complicated." I said. "Like… stories that you can watch again and again on screens."

"Well, then I've lost my touch. I'm not the seasoned warrior I thought I was."

"Yes you are." I said.

"Warriors win fights."

"No," I said. "They try."

"Well then I'm not the scourge of the seven seas," Blackbeard said. "What I was saying about pride and ego? What you're seeing is what happens when it's defeated."

I got tired of his pity-party.

"Don't die of your injuries before they find you," I said. "Your men are still captive, tell that to whoever comes for you."

I was frankly _mad _at this guy. I'd just taken on a boatful of pirates with my sister and metal dogs as my two allies. And he was lamenting on himself, on his reputation. On this, on that, on this, on that- give me a break! Live it down! The world didn't revolve around anyone, especially not him. I wanted my recognition for this. Maybe I was being prideful to, but for this I decided it didn't matter.

I was nearly out the door when he said;

"_You _are the scourge of the seven seas," he said. "That title rightly falls to you, daughter of Bellona."

I turned around for a second and looked at Blackbeard one last time. A man broken because he'd thought he could break me.

Let that be clear; nobody would ever break me.

* * *

><p>The docks were right up to the downtown. I saw skyscrapers right away, a road loaded with cars zipping by. It was like in movies that Hope and I used to watch, about real people in real cities with real jobs.<p>

I tried to think back to when I was little, before Circe's island- which I'd never done much of. I knew I was from San Diego, had I grown up somewhere that looked like this? Did all cities look like this?

Hylla stood at the ship's railing. The air smelt like gas and concrete and dirt- and ocean. People were starting to point at the ship and gawk. I guess it wasn't the average cargo ship. I even saw a few cellphones come up for pictures and videos. So much metallic and grey and electronic and car noises… It was like a whole new world. It was so different… From the ship especially, but also Circe's island which was devoted to greenery and animals and nature and relaxation and then some.

Well wasn't I being out of the box and trying new things lately?

The second the boat was close enough to the dock Hylla and I jumped. She'd given me Bellona's advice on falling and rolling, and I managed. My hand burst in pain again, and I felt like it had a pulse of its own. I shook it off for Hylla's sake. Aurum and Argentum leapt off and landed perfectly, more like cats than dogs. Hylla and I checked a final time to make sure we were walking artillery units, and we ran from the ship immediately.

Following Hylla down the street, I stopped to look back. I really looked at it for the first time ever. It was a slick boat, an old Union Jack flag on the mast instead of the Jolly Roger- the black skull flag. I assumed that this boat hadn't been a pirate ship at first, which explained why there hadn't been that many cannons. The letters forming the name had been worn off by waves and time.

"Let's go," Hylla said. She didn't care where we'd been for the last months; she just wanted it far, far away. I was curious. It was a good thing I wasn't a cat.

We decided that we needed to find food. I wasn't sure what kind of service two filthy girls would get. I was hoping some, and betting on Hylla's adult age to help out, but there was a 'no dogs' sign on the door. We turned away, not ready to take a chance.

We were walking down the street when an ambulance shot past us, going towards the docks. I heard sirens all over.

"We need to find a place to lie low," Hylla said. I looked around and spotted a fast food restaurant. Some place called 'McDonald's'. I vaguely remembered it from when I was six years old. Some weird clown and a play place with a ball pit…

"There," I said. "We're bound to get service." Hylla's nose crinkled.

"I know it's not healthy, but we need the calories…" I said.

"Pff- that's not it, at all! I just remember that it tastes horrible," Hylla said. "But it doesn't matter, let's go."

We pushed through the doors and got in line. It was eleven or so; before any kind of noon rush hour. Hylla walked up to the counter and ordered some food, I didn't recognise anything on the menu. 'Coke', 'Hamburger', 'Fries' didn't ring a bell. She paid with some kind of old looking gold coin. She'd looted the pirate ship for gold and money… I grinned.

"Umm," the girl at the counter started, "We don't take…"

"Yes, you do." Hylla said her eyes boring into the girl.

"Okay," the girl said softly and fast, taking it.

Hylla came back with food and we ate. Well, at least I ate. She just slurped down milkshakes because of her jaw (she told me that they were like unhealthy smoothies). She didn't talk about it but her breathing and eating had gotten weird. Yesterday's rations had gone down in tiny little pieces she cut with a switch blade. I was worried, but I didn't want to bring it up here.

So we ate and drank. Probably too fast, probably too something or other, but right now it was a miracle I even remembered that the word 'etiquette' existed.

The fries ended up being potatoes that were boiled in oil (called "deep-frying") with salt all over them. The salt made them addicting. A hamburger ended up being a kind of sandwich, but they did something to the patty which was why it wasn't healthy, and why they couldn't be found on C.C.'s island. And Coke was just fizzy, sugary water that tasted incredibly good.

Another girl walked in, talking into a Blue Tooth device. She was wearing a black pantsuit, and her hair was tied back tightly. She walked up to the counter.

"Coffee," she said to the girl at the counter. The girl made it quickly and the woman didn't pay.

"Umm- excuse me, you didn't."

"I don't have to," the woman said simply. The poor girl looked like a deer in a headlight, and she stuttered for a bit as the girl went to sit down. Traumatised twice in the hour by two scary looking people; I nearly felt sorry for her.

The girl tapped her Blue Tooth.

"Yes, I was on the scene. I set off a distraction for the mortals; we'll be able to investigate in seconds." She said. Hylla tensed and I met her eyes. She mouthed something to me that I didn't make out. I just pretended to eat fries and listened some more. Those things were saltier than the whole ocean.

"Yes, the police was a bother, but I managed to get at least something out of the captives. Yes, men, tied up well- I couldn't say that I wasn't happy to hear that. They said their prisoners turned against them… Yes, they were girls. Arianna is making sense of things back onsite, I'm trying to track."

I got why Hylla was tense and I got up straight away and walked towards the door. My dogs sprang up from under the table and ran with me.

"Reyna!" Hylla hissed. But I already had my hand on the door.

Tracked. People tracked prey. I wasn't going to be prey; I wasn't falling in that category ever again. Not by pirates, not by people with fancy technology and slick black clothes, no one. It was like someone had pulled a trigger and I was off.

The girl with the Blue Tooth suddenly looked at us like we were the pot of gold at the end of a rainbow.

"Wait- you-" she said.

Hylla broke into a sprint and followed me out into the streets. We darted across a red light, and turned corners in winding patterns, hoping the girl wouldn't keep up. I had no idea where I was going. Hylla sprinted behind me, struggling to keep up. We finally stopped a few minutes later.

"What was that about?" Hylla asked me. "Reyna, you can't just sprint off like that, we'll get lost."

"I don't know, but if someone's looking for us, that's not good." I said. "The pirates might have, like, allies or something."

"Reyna, don't be ridiculous. They've been out of touch with the world for three hundred years, give or take." Hylla said.

"Well do you want to go back and see the mysterious girl in black whose tracking us?" I asked.

Hylla sighed. "Come on, let's keep walking. "

We floundered around for the whole day. Hylla dug out some more stolen gold coins and we got new clothes to try and fit in better. We both went directly for the sports and active wear section.

The only thing I kept was my windbreaker, which wasn't that shredded thanks to Andrew's stitching, and then we found a restaurant to change in. It felt good to wear a shirt whose back wasn't destroyed and looked more like a shirt than rags, and to throw out the clothes that did. Plus we didn't look homeless now, so we fit it better and got less looks.

But we still were homeless, technically.

We lingered around Seattle. Hylla had no idea how the city's nights were, and she talked to me about gang wars and muggers and stuff. I really didn't want to fight or argue tonight. Just _sleep._

Hylla disappeared into a coffee shop and came out with coffee for her, hot chocolate for me, and two muffins. I stole her coffee.

"'Cause I get the first night watch." I said. She tried to protest, but I knew that I'd won when she picked up the hot chocolate cup.

It was the first time I ever slept in an alley. I was pretty sure it wasn't going to be my last. But I knew I felt safer here, in the middle of a city in the middle of the night, than I ever had on the pirate ship.


	15. Bed and Breakfast and Chaos

**A/N: Hi guys! I'd like to thank you about twenty million times for all your reviews last chapters, I'm glad the story is still going strong! I'm sorry for the sloppy format, but my linebreak doesn't work on the site anymore, it's strange.**

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><p>15<p>

Bed and Breakfast and Chaos

**It is vain for the coward to flee; death follows close behind; it is only by defying it that the brave escape.****  
>-<strong>**Voltaire**

The two dogs were snuggled on either one of my legs when Hylla shook me awake the next morning. It took me a few seconds to remember everything, and for the pain in my hands and pretty much everywhere else to flare up. But I smiled.

I straightened up and realised how tight my shoulders were. I felt like something was digging into my back looking for gold, and my leg muscles were begging me not to stand up.

"It's rush hour soon," Hylla said. "When everyone's up and about and trying to get to work."

"Rise and shine, guys." I said. I rubbed the top of each dog's head and four ruby red eyes snapped to a glow.

"Come on, get up." Hylla said, holding out her hand to me. I did it on my own and we walked. Where to? No idea. But waking up to downtown Seattle was better than waking up to four walls and a roof and floor. Like a crate, about to get shipped somewhere.

People were walking around, in their own little bubbles, fingering iPods and phones and gazing into space as they talked into Bluetooths, looking like idiots as they talked to themselves about the stock market or budgets and other things I didn't understand. They might as well be trapped in boxes. Didn't they get how lucky they were not to be?

"So, where?" I asked Hylla. She looked around nervously.

"I don't know," Hylla said. "I was thinking we could find a newspaper and see if there's any news about the ship, if they're looking for us. Maybe Blackbeard or one of the others spilled. But do you think…" She stopped talking.

"What?" I asked. She nudged her head and I spun around to look. There was that girl in black again. And she'd brought friends.

Hylla muttered something in a language I didn't understand or ask about. My hand went to my unzip jacket, where one of the big interior pockets held the dagger.

"Send your dogs," Hylla said.

On a side note, I liked how she called them _my _dogs.

"They won't find us if we just go." I said.

"There are 5 of them." Hylla warned.

"And there were how many pirates?" I muttered back.

"Twenty-eight total. Let's just keep walking," Hylla said. I really didn't believe that would work, but we tried to get lost in the Seattle crowd.

This is when I wished I'd been a little more discreet when I'd looked back at them, now they knew we were out to ditch them.

Hylla sped up the pace and so did I. We pushed past a guy who was obviously on the coffee run (because, let's face it, nobody needed eight large coffees for themselves), and a lady with a dog so small I had to check and make sure it was actually a dog. I think my two automatons died when they saw it. I got a bit anxious that the two greyhounds would start growling, but they were perfectly disciplined, slipping right past. The little dog, on the other hand, growled and it sounded like a blender.

We ran and ducked into a cosmetic store. The girls in black sprinted right past it, and we breathed out.

"Hello," a girl with long metallic nails said. Her hair was died a colour that was so obviously unnatural it looked tacky.

"Hello," Hylla said.

"What can I do for you ladies today?" She asked. I looked around. The nail polish bottles transformed a wall into a rainbow, and the place smelled so heavily of perfume it was impossible to tell if it smelled good or not- which was one way to sell stuff.

"Nothing," Hylla said.

"Nothing at all," I said. And we both ran out of the cosmetic shop right away before the spread of bright colours, glitter polishes and this and that blinded us. To think I'd worked amongst these things before… hopefully I'd never done something that stupid with my hair.

"So you were saying before?" I said.

"Right," Hylla tried to think back, but I noticed that her eyes kept darting back to the store. "Newspaper. Let's figure out what's going on with the ship."

"Did you want to go in?" I asked. She frowned.

"What?"

"Did you want to go into the..?" I nudged my head towards the store.

"Me? Oh- god no." Hylla said. "I was just thinking… I have never seen so many different bottles of nail polish all in one place since Circe's storage room."

"I'm not sure I wanted to see so many bottles of nail polish again." I said. Hylla snickered and messed up my hair. I'd have killed her for it before. It was weird; now I _could _kill her for it but wouldn't. Maybe when you actually _can _take somebody's life away you realise how important one of those is.

We walked around some more (which I had a feeling would be an ongoing thing) and found a diner with a spread of newspaper at the front.

"Let's eat some real food," Hylla said.

When we walked in a lady came up to me.

"Oh, sorry, no dogs allowed." She said apologetically. I raised an eyebrow as it finally dawned on me that nobody was noticing that my two dogs were robots with ruby red eyes. Why? Did they just… Did they ignore it? Hylla probably didn't know either, so I kept the question in mind.

"Guys, you're going to have to go on your own for a bit." I told them. "Just… Come back me when I whistle and…" I lowered my voice, "Don't shred anyone or anything, don't go too far, stay within the block. Got it?"

Aurum barked and I held the door open for them to head out.

"You're not scared that they'll get away?" The lady bussing tables said.

"They're well trained," I told her.

"Yes; greyhounds are intelligent." She said. I raised an eyebrow. Greyhounds? They did have that shape, but there was nothing grey about these guys. They were robotic metal dogs, how did someone who looked directly at them not notice that? I didn't comment though-because if she didn't notice the dogs, maybe she wouldn't notice the weapons- and we followed her to a table.

The menu swarmed with options I hadn't had in forever. Pancakes, waffles, omelettes, eggs (poached or scrambled or sunny side up), muffins, French toast… I nearly drooled right there.

I got eggs; Hylla got a smoothie with a bunch of tropical fruit in it. Nothing solid, or at least not in pieces bigger than my nail.

"We need to fix your jaw," I said once the waitress –who looked too young to be out of school right now (but at least that meant that she wouldn't pick on me)- got away.

"Yeah, well…" Hylla shrugged. "I'll be okay. It doesn't matter."

"Of course it does."

Hylla completely changed the subject. "You know how that girl in black was tracking us?"

"Don't see how I could've missed it," I said.

"Well… What if she's tracking us for our good? Maybe she's the help we need right now." Hylla said.

"I don't like being tracked."

"No, I know, but it still could be someone on our side."

"Someone on our side would have gone to us directly," I defended. She didn't argue with me. She spun the newspaper she was reading around so I could read it, and my eyes caught the title.

**Queen Anne's Revenge Washes Up at Seattle**

"I thought that that Percy Jackson and the blonde took the Queen Anne's Revenge," I said. "Isn't our ship something else?"

"Read the article," Hylla said rolling her eyes.

_ The Seattle dock receives boats and boats every week, ranging in sizes and cargo. But never, ever, has a ship from the 1700 dropped its anchor._

_ And not just any ship, one with a cargo of live men tied up and injured spread across its decks, and in some cases dead. While most men refuse to speak of what these bizarre circumstances are; investigators have transported 4 men to the hospital, one to the Intensive Care Unit. Even more bewildering is the discovery of real and historically accurate weapons, clothing, coins, weapons, and navigational equipment onboard the ship. Reports for stolen historical artefacts are being analysed by investigators, but so far, none match. Historians have examined the artefacts themselves and have pegged each and every one of them as an authentic antiquity. _

_"Cooperation would be essential to figure out this weird mystery, and the only thing we have is witness accounts of the docking." Officer Jonas Little of the Seattle Police said._

_ And those are perhaps even more mysterious than the ship itself are the people in it. 20 adult men were found bound, tied or even dead, and two female figures were seen leaping off the ship's main dock and running off into the city. _

_"Black hair," Mrs. Grace Adams, who has worked at the docks for ten years and witnessed the event, says. "Long. They looked enough alike to be sisters, but I didn't see much else. They had blood on them…"_

_ The two mysterious girls, nicknamed 'Anne and Mary' by the press and police as references to two of the most notable female pirates, have been recreated by police sketch artists thanks to eye witness accounts and pictures taken by bystanders._

_"They were strong. We underestimated them. Blasted daughters of war." One man babbled before falling out of conscience at the Seattle General Hospital._

_ Investigators believe that the two girls were taken as prostitutes or possible slaves by a group trying to recreate the Golden Age of Piracy. Details will remain fuzzy until the 'crew' of this improbable ship will confess to any details. The police asks anyone with information to step up immediately._

_"These poor two girls are loose around Seattle with no idea what just happened, what to do, and possibly where they are." Police psychologist Amanda Hutcherson says. "They were most likely tortured and neglected on this boat as they seem to have been escaping. The emotional strain must be outstanding. They need to be reached out to before their mental or physical states achieve levels too profound for help, or push them to unfortunate lengths- varying from suicide, to violent struggles, to the development of mental disease." _

_As specialists in the domain of piracy, historians, investigators, doctors, lost persons agents and interrogators flood over the ship, questions flood their labs and minds, as well as Seattle's calm. _

_ More on this story on page 5._

"Super," I said. "We're mentally ill."

"Poor us," Hylla said. "Maybe we'll charge into a school with guns."

"Nah, we left the guns there. I think we'll jump off the Seattle tower. You never know with us nut cases." I said. That was the wrong time to say that, because the waitress showed up.

She looked at us crooked for a minute before asking us if everything was alright with the food and walking off faster than she usually did when we said yes. Hylla and I looked at each other and started laughing our heads off.

It was the kind of laugh over something really stupid, but you're just so strained and tired that you laugh your head off. And not that 'how the hell am I still alive?' or 'I can't believe I just did that' strained laughed that had been all anyone had gotten from us since Circe's island. It was real laughter, just multiplied by a gazillion.

We finally calmed down. But then we looked at each other and started all over again. My stomach hurt; but not from hunger this time.

"Maybe we _are_ mentally strained," Hylla said, whipping a tear from her eyes.

"Are you Mary, or am I Mary?" Reyna asked.

"I am totally Mary," Hylla said. "You have to deal with being Anne."

"Fantastic, Anne is so much better than Mary." I said. "You know Hy, these are really soft," I said motioning at my eggs. "Maybe you could eat it."

"No," Hylla said. She shook her head. "I'll be back in a sec, don't get kidnapped."

"I'll try, but my track record sucks," I said. My sister when I was six, pirates when I was twelve. Maybe I'd get aliens when I'd turn eighteen.

She walked towards the bathroom, and I sunk back in my seat, polishing off my plate. I wondered where Aurum and Argentum had gone. Maybe they'd found a dumpster to loot. Did these dogs need to eat anything? Should I be inserting gas or oil through a valve?

The door of the restaurant went 'ding!' and I spun around immediately. I saw two girls, dressed in black, with long silky pony tails come in. My heartbeat accelerated. I tried to be invisible, but invisibility was not my strength, so I ducked under the table.

When Hylla walked out of the bathroom whipping –was that blood? Was she coughing that up again? – blood from her lip. She registered my panicked looks and then watched the door, where the waitress was just greeting the two girls. I recognised one of them from yesterday.

We met each other's eyes and she nudged her head at the door. I lifted a finger up and she nodded.

We'd walk out discretely, if they thought their titles as innocent bystanders were worth it, the girls would leave us alone. We'd also go one at a time, because they were looking for two girls together. Then I'd call the dogs, and we'd get out of here. Maybe completely out of Seattle.

Hylla walked out first. She slipped out as the waitress was busy with the other two. I scrambled back to my seat as she came back. She looked at me with a raised eyebrow. This was the second time today she probably thought I was a complete lunatic.

"I lost an earring," I justified.

"Oh- do you need help to look? I hate when that happens." She said. I saw that she had five piercings per ear herself.

I swung my hair back over my ears and hoped she didn't notice they weren't pierced.

"No, I'm okay, I didn't even know if I had it coming in." I lied. _Find the words, find the words…_ "Umm- I've got to go check on my dogs, just to make sure they're still around. But I'll be back in a second, and my sister's just in the bathroom." I said.

I was going to have to become a better liar. I was going to have to get better with words, my eternal flaw.

"Alrighty," the waitress said, passing a hand through her hair.

"Great," I said getting up and slowly striding out. I didn't dare glance back to see if the other two were paying attention to me. I was about to smuggle out of the diner when I heard someone get up. I spun around fast and saw her walking towards me, an arm outstretched towards me.

My instincts shot up. _She's going to grab me- back! _

I immediately took my dagger out and the waitress gasped, scrambling back.

"Don't!" I told the girl in black. The door flew open and Hylla burst back in, holding a knife of her own.

"Let us go, or you're not going anywhere either." Hylla threatened.


	16. The Amazon Kingdom

16

The Amazon Kingdom

**"Change is the essence of life. Be willing to surrender what you are for what you could become."**

The girl had taken out a sword. The blade was gold like mine, and unlike most of the weapons I'd seen on the ship.

"We won't attack either; we're just here to talk." The girl said.

"Oh my god!" The waitress screeched. She tried to run back to the kitchen but the other girl jumped over a table, bounced off another and tackled her to the ground.

"Don't hurt her!" I said.

"Uzma wouldn't," the first girl said. "She's just taking her out while we speak. This is matter that she can't know about."

I was slowly backing up to the door.

"You're with Blackbeard, aren't you? Somehow." I said.

"He's been a Guinea pig for the last 300 years and is in the ICU right now. How would that have happened?" The girl asked. "Besides. He's a man."

Hylla listened up. They didn't like men in general. This she knew, this she was familiar with, and this she understood and liked.

I nearly slammed my head on the wall. That logic had gotten us nowhere last time, how could she trust it this time?

"What about that?" Hylla asked. The girl smiled.

"We… We have a different view on where men belong. But our politics are for later. You're Anne and Mary, the sister pirates, aren't you?"

"We're not pirates." I snarled. Hylla put a hand on my shoulder.

"Calm down," she said between her teeth.

"But that _is _who you are," the girl in black checked. "And it's why your hand is smashed, and why your jaw broken." I frowned. She knew everything about us. How did she? Were we that easy to find and follow?

"How did you know..?" I asked.

"I'm sorry if that's a bit freaky, but I am a healer before most things. I'm Heaven Mirage, daughter of Apollo." She said. My mind started trying to makes matches between words.

"That's a god, isn't it?" I said.

"It is," Hylla nodded.

"I'm a demigod- one parent mortal and one a god. So are you two, or at least I'm assuming so considering your recent feats. Mother or Father?" Heaven asked.

"Why would we tell _you?_" I snarled.

"Reyna," Hylla whispered harshly. "Don't be unpleasant for no reason."

"We don't know you!" I said. "You could be other monsters or something!" I tugged on Hylla's sleeve making my message very clear. I wasn't interested, I wanted to go.

"I'm not," Heaven said. "I swear on my mother's grave, I am not a monster. I am an Amazon."

"Great, bye." I said trying to drag Hylla. But she dug her heals in- both metaphorically and literally, which sucked for me because I wasn't as strong.

"Don't be afraid," Heaven told me (because I listen to people so well, strangers especially). "We're not harmful to demigods; many of us are demigods ourselves. We _know _how hard and complicated being a demigod is, and how confusing too. Do you want to come to headquarters? We can fix your jaw and hand, give you spare clothes and real food- for both of you. Then we can talk about what the Amazons have to offer."

I was about to snarl that we were doing fine, but then I thought of Hylla's jaw. She needed medical attention for that, and I was pretty sure she should have gotten it ages ago.

Hylla looked at me and searched my face for approval.

"Fine." I said, not happy with it. Hylla' answer was a definite, crystal-clear yes so Heaven was thrilled.

"Perfect!" She said. "I have a feeling you two are going to like it."

I decided I hated the Amazons when the first thing they did was bring us in their building. Something about four walls… It gave me a chill. There weren't even any windows. It was like a fish tank without its water, or like a cage without spaces between the bars. I didn't like it. Plants dotted the black floor every now and then and there was a grand staircase going up in the back.

A girl stood in the center, wearing the same black pantsuit as Heaven and friends.

"G'day," she said with a heavy Aussie accent.

"Hello Emily. Is there someone in meeting room B?" Heaven asked.

"Shouldn't be. You going in?"

"Yes ma'am," Heaven said. The 'ma'am' sounded like a friendly joke. "Follow me," she told us. I noticed that her other friend didn't leave and was looking at the back of my head a lot. I endured it for a while, but it made me extremely paranoid, so I stopped and spun around.

"Look, if I try to escape, you're not going to be the one to stop me, so would you mind giving me some room?" I asked.

The girl met Heaven's eyes.

"You're a fighter," Heaven said approvingly. "Do as she says, Ava."

Ava looked at me with hate that I could live with before stepping back. Hylla bore into my eyes, begging me to behave.

_I'll behave as long as I feel like behaving, _I grumbled to myself.

The winding corridors were navigated by the Amazons like they were all GPS units with satellites telling them where to go. I tried to look around, but most doors were closed. I peeked into one and I saw that it led to a rocky-looking metal balcony, overlooking a warehouse area. I saw people in orange jumpsuits and metal collars pushing carts and driving forklifts. I gulped. They were all captives, they were all held there, none of them could leave.

Then I realised they were all men and I was a bit more okay with it.

Then I remembered Andrew and I wasn't.

Ava poked me in the back and I spun around giving her a look. She budged a bit.

"Yeah," I said, before Hylla grabbed my hand. It calmed me down a bit, but I still didn't like this place.

Finally one door popped a door open and we were in a grey and black conference room with a long, glossy black table and spinning chairs- and still no windows. When the door closed behind us, I realised that there was no other escape route.

_Great._

Ava went to stand in front of the door.

_Even greater._

"Ava, send for Christie to get cracking in the catering unit, and get Mei or anybody else from the infirmary wing to come over." Heaven said.

"Will you be secure with the two..?"

"Oh, I'll be fine." Heaven said looking at us.

_Assume nothing, _I thought_._

The door closed behind Heaven turned to both of us.

"Well. Thank you for following," she said glaring at me. "Once again, I'm Heaven."

"And you're an Amazon. We know." I said. "But what are the Amazons, anyways?"

"I'm glad you asked," Heaven smiled. "The Amazons are a group of female warriors that put themselves above men in society; a reverse reaction of what men do and have done since the dawn of time." She said. "And… Also what they've done in the last few months if any of the guesses about you two are true. Tell me, what are your names? I doubt you'll appreciate the nicknames given to you by the Seattle police and population."

"My name is Hylla, and my sister's name is Reyna."

I starred daggers at her for giving Heaven our names.

"Okay, Hylla and Reyna," Heaven said. "Can you tell me what happened before the boat docked at Seattle?"

I felt like Hylla was about to go in depths of the story, so I cut her.

"We worked with Circe. Some idiot freed the pirates. We didn't work with Circe. We stole weapons on a pirate ship. We captured most of them, killed some. We're here." I said. Hylla shot me a look.

"So, you're telling me you figured out how to use weapons on your own, on a ship, with no previous experience?" Heaven asked.

"Reyna watched the pirates brawl amongst themselves, I remembered action movies, and we had our instincts to guide us." Hylla said. "I know it doesn't sound promising, but it worked." Heaven's eyebrows were raised so high, they nearly disappeared into her hair.

"That's incredible!" She said. That's when the door opened and an Asian girl dressed in black with lips as red as a rose and lush hair came in, a heavy satchel across her shoulder.

"You called, Heaven?" She asked. I tried to remember what Heaven had called the healer… Mei?

"Yes. I've got a broken jaw and a hand here." Heaven said.

I made the healer fix Hylla's jaw first. She set it, whispered what sounded like spells, and fed my sister a thick liquid. Hylla frowned.

"How is this apple juice?" She asked.

"It's not. This is nectar, the food of the gods, but it tastes like your favourite beverage. Ambrosia, the food, does the same. They have amazing healing properties, unless you take too much." Heaven said.

That must be what Hylla had found in Blackbeard's cabin, what had healed her ankle.

The healer looked at my hand. She unwrapped my bandage, and felt my hand. She asked me if it hurt and I said no. She said it should hurt a lot considering the break, but if I couldn't feel it, I was resistant like hell. When I didn't reply, Mei spread some paste over it.

"This is just a quick fix to relieve the pain," she told me, wrapping up my hand again. "We'll look at it more in depth later. Basically what it does is that it'll unable you to use your hand for at least twelve hours. After that we'll have to really set it."

"Thank you." I said. She smiled and nodded to Heaven before leaving. That's when another Amazon came in with food. A collection of sandwiches were piled on a plate for us, and we were each given a bottle of water. I'd just had breakfast, but that didn't stop me from digging in. Hylla was starving by now since milkshakes and smoothies weren't all that filling, and she devoured the food given to her.

We left some on the plate once we were done, and then it occurred to me that the sandwiches might be poisoned.

"Where were we?" Heaven asked.

"The 'We're incredible' part," I said, gesturing to Hylla and me.

"Right!" Heaven said. She didn't understand sarcasm. "And I imagine that if warfare is such an inborn strength of you both, your godly parentage reflects it."

"Bellona." I said.

"Bellona, go figure… She is a striking goddess, though I have never met her children before. They are said to be rare and powerful. You two do the reputation justice." Heaven said. "And I also imagine that if you two are so determined and handy with weapons already, you'll look for options to continue your education or profession in weaponry."

"Yes." Hylla said automatically.

"Why not join the Amazons?" Heaven said spreading her hands as if what we were looking at should be enchanting to us.

Hylla met my eyes and they were shinning. She took my hands and turned me towards her.

"Reyna…" She said quietly so Heaven wouldn't hear. "This is it. It's basically made for us, this is what we need."

"No," I said. "It's not!"

Both of them spun around to stare at me.

"Rey…" She said.

"Look, all I'm saying, is that…" I was tripping on my words again, I just couldn't seem to talk. I restarted. "This 'no men' policy. You enslave them don't you?"

"No," Heaven said. "They have a choice."

"Slavery or death?" I asked.

"Once they are captured and judged," Heaven said, which told me enough. I grabbed Hylla's arm.

"Hylla, this is just like what the pirates did to us." I said. "You want to do that?"

"It's justice." Hylla said. "And _we_ _didn't_ have a choice."

"Would you have picked death if we would have?" I asked. "What kind of a choice is that?"

"Reyna- this isn't the same- they're judged."

"And so were we. For doing what we were _supposed _to do on that island." I said.

"The world is a court," Heaven intervened. "Men have always judged themselves better than women, girls and even _goddesses, _the nerve of some! The Amazons simply provide a much needed reality check."

I thought black to Blackbeard insulting Bellona. And then I thought back to him lying on his cot and admitting that his pride had done it to him. And then of Andrew, who hadn't punched me those days my mood had been particularly bad and when I'd been in chains and defenceless, even if I deserved it. I was sure he could've.

"I believe that some of them are good." I said. "Shouldn't you judge people by their own merits?"

Heaven's eyes got murderous, but I didn't flinch.

"Can you give me and my sister five minutes please?" Hylla asked.

"Certainly," Heaven said. "I understand the choice is massive, and it's thrown on you quickly without warning."

"Yeah," I said. Heaven excused herself from the room after promising that she'd just be in the hall. What a relief.

"Reyna, what's wrong?" She asked. "Why are you so tense?"

"I don't know," I said. "But I don't want to stay here."

"Why not?" Hylla asked. "This is so much like Circe's…"

"And look what good _that_ did!" I said.

"Reyna, don't talk like that. It would have been fine if not for those pirates and Percy Jackson."

"Andrew saw me before he went with Luke. I was a real jerk to him, but he didn't call us out for trying to escape. Everything could be so different if he'd been what he was 'supposed to be'. That blonde girl went to some pretty great lengths to save Percy Jackson, so he _must _have some redeeming quality to him. Look at us, we were supposed to be weak and submissive on that boat. People aren't what they're told to be. Circe's philosophy was wrong, Hylla. " I said.

"Maybe not. Circe was wrong, fine. But this… The Amazons value and give strength, Reyna, that I'm ready to be a part of. Didn't you hear those quotes in the paper? They think we're weak and traumatised. They don't even suspect that we fought back. This is… This is proving to the world that we can fight forever. That you can't _assume_ that you're better than us," Hylla said taking my hand. "Look, the spa was the first and only option I'd gotten for us. I had to take it, I didn't think about it. I just feel like I need to take this offer too."

"I don't," I said. "I really don't. This place has no windows, it's so industrialised and stereotypical- I saw these… _slaves _through a door! That's what nearly happened to us. If time hadn't changed the world's laws and screwed up Blackbeard's nautical equipment, it would've happened to us. And you want to be part of an organisation that sponsors slavery? That's hypocritical!"

"Reyna- do you know what they did to me when I was being tortured alone?" Hylla suddenly said.

I felt like she'd hurled a boulder at me.

"Yeah," I finally said. "I know." I took a deep breath. "You never said a word but I know, Hylla. And I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry."

"You do know." For a second she looked hurt and humiliated and drained of her energy. Like somehow, even if I knew how to use a gun or swing a sword, I shouldn't know about some of the world's dirty little secrets.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Her eyes opened again.

"So you can't ask me to respect the people who did that. You can't ask me to want to be near others like them and you can't ask me to ignore it."

"Andrew-"

"To me, Andrew wasn't a saving grace; he was just a loose cannon who went off at the right time, trying to impress you because that's what boys do when they see pretty girls." Hylla said.

"That's what he is if you're a pessimist."

"Let me talk," she said. I shut up. "I can't forgive what the pirates did right away, please understand that. It's going to take me some time to get over it and be able to be okay with it. Those things they did to me, they happened because I was a girl. If I weren't, then the thought wouldn't even have crossed their minds. Is it that bad to want to be on an equal level now? Is it that bad to want to be far away from them? You can't tell me, now that you know all of this, that what the Amazons do is hypocritical; it's justice." Hylla said.

"Don't judge all men by what Circe said. By what the pirates did. They were rogue, they were barely human, or half-human or whatever." I said.

"Really Reyna? How do you know what people are like, that's the only examples we have." Hylla said.

"Because I'm hopeful that the world really is a good place and that you really can trust some people! Look at everything- they build cities and write newspapers and open shops. It's amazing!"

"Don't be full of wonder Reyna, those things aren't new, you just don't remember them."

"You can take this offer if you feel that it's right, but I won't. I _know _that this isn't the only option." Reyna said.

"It's not?" Hylla said. She crossed her arms, not impressed with me. "Okay, what would you have us do instead?"

"The Fields of Mars," I said, "the ones that I saw in my dream about Bellona. I keep thinking back, and I keep remembering what she said."

_"So what are they going to beat up?" I asked, pointing towards the fort. Bellona squinted. _

_"I'm not sure yet. Something bad is on its way. An old fight with old spoils and blood will come. It has haunted the gods who were there for the first round plenty; now we wait for the second round." Bellona said. "You want to be around when it happens? Try making it through breakfast first, okay?"_

There was going to be a fight there. There were people, demigods. And just something about the way the fort looked, about the open fields… I had to be there. It drew me in like a fishing line.

"Reyna, we don't know where that is." Hylla said.

"We can look."

"Yes, we can look for years and we still might not find it."

"But we might," Reyna said.

"Reyna, if they were really a good option, they would have been there when you were six. If they took in demigods, that's where we'd have been. And if it's all demigods- I'm not even sure I want to be there after what I've seen."

"Oh, and the Amazons were there when dad died?"

"They don't recruit kids that age; Heaven was talking to me when Mei was looking at your hand."

"Well assume this place didn't either." I said.

"Reyna, I don't have a good vibe about something you saw in a _dream_." Hylla said.

"No, you have no problem with it; you're just throwing everyone in the same spot again." I said. "You're stereotyping everything you've seen an example of."

"Reyna…" Hylla said. "I don't want to take the chance for us to get burned."

"Well I am." I said. We both starred at each other for a second.

"We can't separate." She said. "I… I couldn't let you…"

"Couldn't let me do what?" I asked. "Be an actual demigod? Demigods figure things out- like Hercules did, right? They pick their battles and fight for what they want and need and deserve- for what others want and need and deserve."

"There's a difference between figuring things out and leaping before looking."

"I've looked. In a dream, I've told you that." I insisted.

"I don't think that's enough, but I think the Amazons are. I'm not going." Hylla said. She was putting her foot down. She was making her final judgement, I knew that face on my sister. It used to mean that I had to go to bed or that I wasn't doing something stupid with my hair or that I had a curfew. Now it meant that my life was about to change forever, and for better or for worst she wasn't going to be there to see it.

"Well…"

Oh gods, did I want to go? Did I want to go now? The Amazons weren't that bad, I was exaggerating.

No I wasn't. I knew what I'd seen and I knew that I didn't like it. I understood why they did it, maybe Heaven and Ava and Uzma and Mei had their own stories like Hylla, but I wasn't ready to go down this road again. Not me. And I had just enough trust in a mysterious, invisible road I'd seen in a dream to go down it.

Alone? Without my sister?

Yes. I wasn't six years old anymore. I didn't need Hylla to take my hand and tell me which way and when to run, finding sanctuaries and answers to my problems- no matter how thankful I would always be that she'd done what she'd did six years ago. As much as I wished that I could still get a guided tour of life, it was time to go down this strange road even if I went down this strange road alone. And if I couldn't do it, then that was better than having grown old bitter and sheltered in the Amazon Kingdom.

"I am," I said. "I am going to find that fort."


	17. Locking Up

**So I lost the document on my computer... again... I'm reorganising my Word files to make sure it won't happen again and I'm very sorry for all of the delays. Here's your chapter.**

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><p><strong>17<strong>

Locking Up

**The advantage of the emotions is that they lead us astray.****  
>-<strong>**Oscar Wilde**

I could describe how we'd tried to find a way out of it, or make the other budge for fifteen minutes but we were circling, and we were both too impatient for that. We were throwing the same points at each other's faces and generally not going anywhere, and we both realised it after a while although I think we'd known all along. Our mother had told us we were both strong, and we were both holding that against one another. We could work together perfectly, but we couldn't go against one another.

She dropped coins in my hand, and also something else.

"These are from the ship," she said. "They're just as much yours as they're mine, and you'll need them."

"And what's this?" I asked pocketing the coins but keeping the certain something in my hand.

It was a ring with a symbol on it; a sword and a torch making an X like a treasure map. The irony seemed cruel.

"There were two of these, and Dad kept them for us. I found them after he died. Since I… Since I didn't want you to know who our mother was back on the island I never gave you yours and it was lost on the island. I woke up wearing two yesterday. I suppose mother is a very persistent gift-giver."

She told me that if I ever needed anything she'd be in Seattle, and she'd do everything that she could to help me. She told me to be strong, which I didn't think I needed a reminder of. I was too terrified of what happened when I wasn't ever to falter. She said that if anything happened to me, I should come back to her right away and she'd kick whoever's butt two times as worse than I would.

I wasn't all that happy about her staying with the Amazons, but I still smiled, took her advice and put the ring on my finger.

Heaven handed me a backpack.

"Supplies," she explained. "You have a fair bit in there. It's the Amazon's duty to help any female warrior of worth that comes through our doors. You are _definitely _of worth, daughter of Bellona. We'll take you in anytime."

"Great," I said. "Thank you."

I was slightly less happy when Ava was the one to lead me out of the building. She was waiting outside the door after I walked out, her hands folded behind her back like a sentinel and her cornflower blue eyes fixed on me.

"You're stupid not to stay with the Amazons." She said as we walked down the hallway.

"And you're stupid to question my choices and piss me off," I snapped back at her.

"But in a way it does make sense," she said. "I mean, there couldn't be two of you here."

"What do you mean?" I asked sharply turning towards her.

She turned to look at me and the change of her eyes hit me like a boulder. Not blue; dark. Dark like mine and Hylla's, the colour we'd inherited from…

Bellona.

"Your destinies are both too strong to be in the same place," Ava, controlled or possessed or whatever, continued. "There isn't a big enough throne or a big enough empire for both of you in one place. Splitting is just as much in your destiny."

I didn't bother asking what in the world my destiny was. I didn't want to know, I didn't care right now. I felt horrible and miserable.

Ava turned her head from me and looked straight again.

"I won't speak to you for a while now. If you're to arrive at your destination, it has to be on your own. The wolf will respect that."

"What wolf?" I asked.

"The Wolf. The She-Wolf. Be polite when you meet her. I don't want my children giving me a bad image. Besides, she'd kill you." Bellona said.

"Why?" I asked.

"A fort is for warriors," Bellona said. "Warriors can stand in line, silent and obedient, as much as they can be independent and strong and undefeatable. Or at least the good ones can, and that's all the fort will take. Camp Jupiter is your final destination, is it not?"

So _that _was the fort's name. Although I didn't think it'd do me much good. I doubted I could just ask for directions from now on.

When Ava held the door open for me and then proceeded to slam it, her eyes were cornflower blue again.

I walked back to the restaurant because that was the last place I had a real connection to. Police cars were stationed outside, as well as an ambulance. The waitress was wrapped in a blanket, and stuttering her story to the police officer who took notes so quickly I thought he'd rip through his paper. It made me think of my dad for a second, and how his death had led Hylla and I to run away, and how it'd spiralled into the events that left me alone in Seattle. He'd probably done that before- interviewing someone in shock and scribbling notes and being comforting. Had he been a comforting man? My imagination drifted off. Square shoulders, short hair. We didn't have his eyes, so his had possibly been completely different. Bottle green or sky blue, maybe. I imagined that he _was _comforting. And kind. And gentle. Definitely courageous if he'd given his life in service.

I shook the thought out of my head, and retraced my steps back around the corner I'd just turned. I took out the whistle and summoned the two dogs, hoping they would show. Both of them rounded the corner, their nails knocking on the pavement, and they halted where I knelt, putting their paws on my knees.

"Hey guys," I said, scratching the top of their two heads. "It's…" For a second I got really scared. "It's just you and me now."

I wavered and the dogs bit into my sleeves and tugged. They were trying to drag me into an alley, and I let them. I crumpled against the brick wall between dumpsters and buried my face in my knees.

What had I just done? It had sounded like a good idea a few minutes ago, but maybe I should have gone for the silent and obedient side of warriors in that building. Maybe what I believed in didn't matter, didn't make a difference.

I took deep breaths.

No way. No way was I sitting in an alley doubting myself this quickly after I'd made what might be the biggest decision of my life, after what might be the one thing making me a better person than Blackbeard and the pirates. This wasn't honest doubt that was ravaging my heart right now. My emotions were taking the best of me, because I was scared and lonely and lost, and scared because I was lonely and lost.

I raised my head. I wasn't going to let that happen. I could cover those up and plough through something as puny as feelings. I'd just escaped from a pirate ship, for God's sake!

I was going to have to make it on my own. I was going to have to make sure that I wouldn't sit down one day and be so overwhelmed, I couldn't talk myself out of feeling sorry like I just had.

I burst into tears, hiding my face in my arms, for a thousand reasons. Some I couldn't name, some that probably didn't really exist.

When I looked up I felt a little better, but not enough for this to be a regular thing. The dogs looked at me, chewing at my sneakers and licking my hands. I smiled at them and got up. That was it. That fear, that loneliness, that confusion, that hesitation back in the room with Hylla- it was the last time.

This was the last plunge into emotion I'd take before locking up.

"Come on boys," I said to the dogs. "Let's go find some answers."

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><p>I asked a lady for direction. She looked at my face for a few seconds and I was scared she'd read the paper and seen the sketch of Hylla and me. But it passed, and she gladly pointed me to the right direction, towards the Seattle Public Library. It was only a block or so away, which was good.<p>

On the way I had to stop, though. A brightly coloured shop was right in front of me, it almost looked childish. The name said it all when I bothered to find it; "Sweet on America". A candy shop.

I bit my lips. I was going to be doing some stupid, risky, dangerous and serious stuff from this point on. I'd locked up my emotions, should I lock up the kid in me too? Was there still a kid in me after what I'd been through? I wasn't sure, but I knew that I wanted to do something frivolous and silly before diving into this new demigod mess.

So I pushed the doors and the smell was overwhelming. Sweet things were piled in bulk containers, jars were filled with candies wrapped in bright wrappers and displays of piled and lined candy bars were on the wall like thrones.

I smiled.

I didn't know what half of this stuff was. I could barely remember 'chocolate' and wouldn't know the word if I hadn't heard Circe speak of it like it was the devil (which, to all the dieticians on the island, it was). I took two bars at random for that. One in a red wrapper, and another that Argentum was sniffing at called a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup. I knew peanut butter was good, so at least that was safe.

Then there were these things called jelly beans, which didn't look like jelly at all. I figured that in that case, they must be unhealthy enough to be worth it so I took a spoonful from one of the big bulk containers. I dropped the spoon and Aurum nuzzled it towards my foot to help me pick it up.

I found these lollipops, like candy on a stick, and decided that caramel was important to try and that Twinkies looked too sugary _not _to be good, whatever they were.

I went to the cash register, like I'd seen Hylla do at that McDonald's place. It seemed stupid not to know how to handle money and buy things. Like a sailor who couldn't swim, or an airman without a parachute.

Aurum put his paws on my leg and sniffed my pocket to remind me of where I had my cash. I paid with pirate gold, but the bored guy barely looked interested. Maybe I could have just stuffed everything in my backpack and left and he wouldn't have realised it. Too late now. I could try that some other time.

I walked out of the candy store and broke a piece of a chocolate bar, the red one called a Kit-Kat off.

If this was going to be the last frivolous, silly, unnecessary thing that I did then I was glad that I'd picked something as good as chocolate.

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><p>I snuck in the dogs, and they lied down at my feet as I powered up one of the computers, swinging my backpack off my shoulder and at my feet.<p>

I had a vague idea of how to use a computer because of movies. After I figured out how to use the mouse properly I opened up something called 'Internet Explorer' hoping that it would take me to the Internet. The first page I saw was Google, and I knew what that was. That seemed like the key to using the Internet.

But what was I supposed to look up? 'Bellona'? No, I knew who that was plenty. Just 'Roman Mythology' in general? I decided against it because it was too big.

The first thing I did was go onto Google translator and type in 'Aurum and Argentum'. It said something like 'Latin detected' and when I clicked on 'translate to English' it came out exactly as how I'd first called the dogs; Gold and Silver. I gawked when I tried a few other random words in and beat Google Translator to their Latin wording. I could speak Latin by instinct. Was Latin what they spoke in Rome? I looked it up and yes, it was. I felt stupid not to know such a basic thing.

I tried "Roman god of the ocean". That was Neptune, which made the cook a child of Neptune- like Theseus (I read his Wikipedia –Wikipedia seemed to know everything- page too since there was a section on Neptune's entitled 'Offspring'. It looked like lots of gods had children with mortals).

Scanning through other pages I determined that Andrew's mother must have been Minerva, if he was so educated or maybe even Athena if he was Greek. Also, his eyes were grey. It seemed small, I knew how easily people could change their true colours and looks, but I knew it was right. Instincts, I supposed. Instincts that were very different from emotions.

"Fields of Mars" was next on my hit list. Maybe it was an actual place recognised by the government or something. I doubted it, it didn't seem like people believed in the Greek gods, but if I could at least figure out what they were other than 'battlefield'…

I read articles, and articles; clicked in the words in blue that brought me to _more _pages of information, and it was nearly four in the afternoon when I looked at the time and realised I needed a plan before dark, and I had to start working at it _now_. I starred at the screen, which showed pictures after pictures of ancient statues and paintings.

My brain thought at a million miles an hour. If the gods had come from Rome to the United States of America, maybe these places like the fields of Mars had too. It sounded a lot simpler than buying a plane ticket to Italy and getting some kind of fake passport.

And if they'd come they must have hidden pretty well, or else that newspaper article Hylla and I had read this morning wouldn't have treated Blackbeard like a delinquent for calling himself a child of Ares. Besides, Ares wasn't Roman he was Greek. Maybe Blackbeard was old enough to go back to Greece.

I couldn't _wait _to get out of the library, where the silence was eerie and every breach of it- sneeze, giggle, cry for mommy, computer volume turned up too high…- made me jump four feet in the air. Besides, it had some answers but not the ones I was looking for obviously.

"Come on," I told Aurum and Argentum who were hiding under the computer desk. "California isn't that far. I think."

No; I hadn't been fooled by those 'everything is in California' commercials or billboards I'd seen coming into Seattle. But I remembered what Luke had told Blackbeard. _"Y__ou can go south and find San Francisco. But that's unlucky land- Mount Othrys." _

Unlucky or not; Othrys was something from mythology. I could see a fort installing itself there- keeping watch on a danger that had a million chances of jumping out at you any time. It was my best shot. And I looked up San Francisco and it was a big city in California. Also called The City by the Bay and the 14th most populated city in the United States.

I walked out of the library and came face to face with something worse than a pirate.

"_Demigod," _it hissed when it saw me. I stumbled back, nearly to the library's doors and drew my knife.

"What are _you?" _

It hissed. Apparently the looks were a delicate subject for this thing, but I refused to believe I was the first to bring it up. Not with two snake tails as legs; thick as trunks with forest green scales. It wore an intricate top that looked like something a Persian princess would wear, with trails and strings of silver beads. They were braided into her hair as well, and she held a trident and a weighed net. A quiver and a bow were draped around her shoulders like a sash.

She'd try to throw the net on me to immobilize me, then kill or torture me with her trident and either leave me to die, or take me up in her net. Monsters ate demigods, that part seemed evident. No creature would have the kind of teeth the snake lady had for any other reason than eating flesh.

If I ran and became a target, and she'd pin me with whatever she had.

My main idea was that I had to avoid the net at all costs so I could fight the trident and dodge the arrows. It seemed basic enough.

"You will rue the day you insssssulted the Dracaena Queen," she said. My two dogs stepped forwards and growled.

"I bet I will," I said. "Until then…" She threw her net and I rolled backwards, back into the library. An arrow shot over me and I would've been dead if I wouldn't have ducked. It stabbed right into a wooden stall with new releases.

The Dracanae took her trident and stabbed it through the door, before lifting it right off its hinges and shaking it off- like food on a fork. The librarian shot up and looked past the door. She gasped and started babbling, but I ignored. My heartbeat sped up, just like on that pirate ship.

She slithered into the library and I backed up, past the metal detectors. I was being cornered in a room with furniture, objects, and other people.

"Ha!" She said. "Foolish demigod- your sssscent is so easssssssily tracked when you use electronicssss! Rookie missssstake! You mussssst be new! I will be the first to get a tassssssssssste of your flesh!"

"When did the no-electronics rule kick in?" I muttered looking around. The librarian had her phone to her ear.

"Hello? 911?"

I groaned. Not police, police was bad… Besides, who called 911 when they saw a snake lady attacking a girl who only had a knife?

I didn't have time to think about that, I had to figure out what to do. How to get out of these four walls... I looked around and saw that the whole back wall was letting sunlight in; it was glass. If I could turn around, sprint… She would throw her trident or shoot arrows to get to me, if I ran too far for the net to be a convenient throw. And if I was in front of the windows…

I wasn't sure to what extent Aurum and Argentum would do faced with Godzilla though, and I should prepare for that eventuality. I needed a shield or…

"Oh my god!" The librarian gawked. "I recognize her! It's that girl from the paper about the pirate ship!"

I groaned when I was recognized, which made the Dracanae laugh a hissy and shrill laugh.

"You, ssssssshut up." I said imitating her stupid slithering.

I drew the sword Hylla had passed on to be, the length was better. I'd been walking with it sheathed to my side all day without having it noticed, it was about time I took it out.

She lunged at me with her trident. I let it come at me until I could duck, stop the hilt with the knife I held in my other hand, and try to get her in the ribs with my sword. One of her snake legs whipped my legs and it bucked, but I just let myself fall and rolled away from her.

I stayed low and army crawled towards the back. By staying low, I was hopefully hidden away from her at least a bit, and I got to crawl under tables set up for studying and computer desks.

She tried to shoot, and I tuned in to the real world's noises just then. People were screaming and ducking behind shelves, the dogs were following me, barking. The arrows made whizzing sounds as they got shot, and stayed lodged in the ground, sticking out like a porcupine's spikes. I heard sirens.

Oh, for crying out loud…

I jumped up like a jack-in-the box.

"Hey! Ugly!" I yelled. They were poor insults, but I wasn't exactly a poet.

She slithered and threw her trident. I hit the deck and threw my hands over my head to protect myself against the glass.

Aurum had grabbed my sword in his mouth and Argentum did the same with my dagger.

"Thanks," I muttered, taking my weapons from their jaws.

The Dracanae was advancing towards me, and she yelled in rage. She wanted me to stay contained, where her long-range weapons would rule against mine. In the open, anything was possible. I could run faster than she could slither, especially if I got on a rough or rocky terrain where her noticeably sensitive snake legs would hurt. Like the one beyond the windows. It looked like my instincts had picked the right exit route for me after all.

She threw her trident and the glass wall next to the door burst open. Glass shards hit me and I felt my skin tear once a particularly hard shard hit my cheek. I tripped out into the grass surrounding the building and saw the trident which had continued to soar after shattering the glass.

Long range weapon- I didn't have too many of those…

I sheathed my sword and grabbed the trident as the Dracanae burst through the remaining glass. She notched and arrow and I rolled away to stay close to the ground.

I used the trident to sweep her legs out from under her. She fell back and I scrambled to my feet, taking the trident and impaling her leg.

The monster yelled in pain. Golden blood poured out from the three, neatly aligned pierce wounds.

I raised it again and sunk it into her beaded chest. She shrieked and exploded, just as a police car pulled up to the curb, hiking onto the grass.

"Stop right there!" The police officer yelled.

Of course I didn't. I swept down and grabbed some necklaces. I stuffed them in my pocket and ran like the wind.

"Hey! Hey! We want to help!" The officer yelled as I ran. I was tripping over my own two feet.

My knuckles were white as I held the trident tightly, and I heard the click of eight paws on the sidewalk next to me. I knew I was being chased for sure now. The dogs would jump out and licked my hands every once and a while, letting me know they were with me, framing me like bodyguards.

Aurum rounded a corner into an alley, barking, and I followed him. Then I realized it must be a dead end; which was particularly stupid on my behalf. I was cussing myself in my mind when Aurum ran right through the wall. I halted.

Through the..?

Argentum barked at me, as if he were saying _come on, go_ and I did the same. I took a deep breath, figured I had nothing to lose, and ran through the wall too.

It was like there was another back to the alley. Squished between a brick wall, like the alley had had, and concrete there was a whole street.

"What is this place, boy?" I asked. Aurum just jumped up and down, as if pleased with himself. I'd never seen him act so much like a dog.

"Well, you saved us." I said. I tried to figure out what this place was. I figured it couldn't be dangerous, because my dog had intense fears for my safety.

"Which way is South?" I said. Argentum was the one who knew, she just directed us one way and we followed.

I don't know how long we walked, but I stopped a few hours later. I already saw the stars up high, every now and then the place wasn't roofed, which was the only reason why I wasn't freaking out. I was getting increasingly suspicious that I was claustrophobic or something.

"Let's stop for the night," I told them. I sat up against a wall and took out a granola bar from the supply backpack the Amazons had given me. It was apparently their duty to help any female warrior, and since I was one of their owns' sisters, I had to be helped. They'd even given me a few things I could try with the dogs. Batteries, oil… Argentum helped me figure that out by sitting in front of me, opening her mouth wide. I examined her teeth and found one that looked off. I looked at it closer and noticed that it came off. There was a small hole.

"So that's how you guys work," I said.

I poured some oil in, and did the same for Argentum. They chased batteries I threw around while I finished eating another granola bar. I was going to have to ration everything, who knew how long this tunnel was, and just in case.

I had some more candy. I tasted some of everything, and the dogs decided to help themselves too. But I didn't let them touch the jelly beans. Those were the best.

When I went to sleep, Argentum curled up with me and Aurum laid down, his head on my outstretched legs. I looked up at the sky and realized just how lonely I was. The gears and motors spinning inside my dogs heated them up, and I had grown attached to them. But I missed Hylla already. We'd have talked under the stars, laughed about the Dracanae. She'd have confirmed my suspicion that using electronics was like sending a flair to monsters because I bet she'd have known and she'd have said something to get me to sleep faster.

But even if I knew how to get out of this tunnel, I wouldn't go back to the Amazons. I'd said that I didn't need their help, and if I went back that would always be held against me. What I'd told Hylla: I believed in. No. I would find my own way even if all the ways looked equally suicidal right now.


	18. Jason Grace

**Hi! Last week I put a tumblr update that I couldn't put a chapter up because I was gone to girl guide camp nearly straight after school. And I'm glad I didn't because I came to the conclusion that I was tired of making you guys wait for chapters as long as I was. So instead of scrambling to review and make the story believable and realistic after the horrid first draft, I decided to end the story sooner than expected. There was going to be a plot line about Reyna jumping in on a quest and the pirates escaping from jail and going after her- but I decided that I wanted to end this story well instead of ending it with more plot and less happy readers. Makes sense?**

**Speaking of readers, thank you so much for sticking with this story that wasn't easy to stick with at times, I assume. I love you all, your input was amazing and helpful and your reviews made my day that much brighter. Rock on, guys. **

**Disclaimer: I don't own the characters shown below.**

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><p>25<p>

Jason Grace

**And in reality, I don't think it's a real documentary. It's more a story of her life. It's a story of survival. It's a story of the time in which she lived. The story of success and failure.  
>-Maximilian Schell<strong>

"Well this is great," Bobby said. "Super. Love this. We're like boy scouts. Go wilderness. I suggest a sing-along."

"Shut up Bobby, we're not lost." Dakota told him.

"I know that we figured out how to read that freaky talking map ages ago- I'm just saying I hate this."

"This is a forest- a very tame forest at that. You're supposed to be able to handle this. What kind of legionnaire are you?" I asked.

"The kind that hasn't been raised in a cave," he told me.

"Watch it with the Jungle Book jokes." I told him. It was Bobby's all-time favorite thing to tease me with. Calling me Mowgli, telling me to watch out for tigers… Lame, but so were most of Bobby's jokes. Well, make that all of Bobby's jokes.

I slashed a plant out of my way with my sword- the new, fancy gold toy Jupiter had delivered at the foot of my bed the morning I'd left for the quest. I was hoping for some fatherly advice when I'd prayed to Jupiter for help, but I'd learned to take what you can get in life. Especially from a god. Particularly if that god is my father.

We'd been walking for three days in the forest, and so far there was no sign of Salem where our next stop was. Supposedly if we talked to Trivia, she'd be able to help us out. Which made sense since we were looking for a highly dangerous magical creature and she was the magic goddess… Besides, I trusted the praetors.

It was supposedly an eight day trek unless we got a ride- since the dragon had destroyed the gliders Dakota and Bobby had used to keep up with me in the air. Ground was more dangerous to move around since there were more monsters there, but the other two couldn't fly and I wasn't strong enough to carry them. Not yet, anyways. I had hopes.

"Stop moving," I called out suddenly.

"What is it, Jason?" Bobby asked.

"I heard something." I said. I'd gotten good at distinguishing the sounds of a forest from the sounds of an intruder in the forest thanks to Lupa.

My friends didn't move and I heard it again. Very muffled; barely audible, but it was definitely there. Something that hid its steps well… My first thought was a monster because hikers wouldn't try to hide.

"There's someone else out here." I breathed out. It was human.

"_Gladus," _ Dakota said. We raised our swords and stood back to back with each other. Then for a while I didn't hear a single sound. I was jittery and we'd just ran into a god not long ago. A non-friendly minor god, that is. I was just nervous about keeping Bobby and Dakota safe and hearing things.

All of a sudden I saw two sets of ruby red eyes in the bush. I moved quickly to avoid the dogs, but they jumped on Dakota who was taken down as if they were specially trained K9 unit dogs.

I sprang back up, sword raised and a girl jumped out from the trees, and landed in front of me. She grabbed Bobby from behind, an arm around his neck and brought her knee up to his tail bone. He yelled, and she used some kind of pressure point to have him on the ground whining and crippled.

Then she charged me.

I met her blade with mine, but she was scarily fast. Within two seconds I was terrified of her, whatever she was. If she was a her- it was hard to tell in the magic world.

She set up your sword to be where she wanted it to be, and knocked it out from there. If I'd trained for a day less in my life she'd have gotten me. I fought one on one for what seemed like hours, battling her like I'd never battled a half-blood before; not in training, not when the praetors rained down their worst to test the kid who'd been raised with Lupa for eight years, not ever. Her dark eyes were screaming at me to drop dead and run in the opposite direction.

"Whoa- who are you- we're not enemies of half-bloods, stop!" I said.

She fought quickly and suddenly, with strong blows. Her style was odd- stuck between legion fighting and something freestyle, unruly and more single as if she'd never fought in a cohort. Something that looked like she'd created. Where did demigods learn to fight outside of the legion?

I twisted my gladus and my hand closed over the spear it turned into. That magic trick was the only thing that got me out of that fight.

I turned it around and stabbed her in the side with the wooden tip, blue static crackling at the other end giving her a shock, to back her off. She stayed where she was, but I was pretty sure that was because she didn't think we'd go for her.

"Who _are _you?" I asked again.

"Reyna Sabourin," she said, not even panting. "Daughter of Bellona and Scourge of the seven seas."

"Scourge of the seven _what?_" Bobby asked. "Isn't that Captain Hook?"

"Blackbeard," Reyna said. "And it _was._"

"Was?" I asked her. I was confused. Blackbeard was dead. Were we too far out to send this girl to Lupa to sort her out? Because she was obviously _very_ confused, but obviously also a demigod. Or maybe we could just point her to the right direction because although she was pretty, she scared the Styx out of me.

She turned to look at me, and her eyes were so strict and stable, harsh and calm, I knew she was mentally fine.

"Not everyone stays the way they are forever," she said calmly.

And looking at her; with her filthy clothes like she'd been on the run forever, the scars and dried blood on her face and hands, the harsh light in her eye that said 'I will survive even if you won't'… I believed she was the scourge of _something._

I just didn't think it'd be the scourge, and then later the love, of my life.

* * *

><p><strong>The End<strong>

**12:09, 18/12/2011**

**5:20, 22/2/2013**

**Forever scripting,**

**HecateA**


End file.
